re: "Damn, Ogabe Must Be in Need of a Distraction"

Emperor Misha I at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler ("HQ of the Rottweiler Empire. An Affiliate of the VRWC.") posted with his characteristic frankness and clarity.

Money quote(s):

"Joe on the Taliban:

Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That’s critical.

The sound you hear is from thousands of U.S. troops shouting from Afghanistan: “Then who in the holy FUCK are those haji bastards shooting at us, you drooling, dimwitted dickheaded shitbird?”

We don’t know about the rest of you fine citizens (actually we do), but in our book assholes trying to kill U.S. troops are the very textbook definition of “enemies”"

Perhaps this will refresh the memory. I'm fairly certain the VP was in the room, if not as VP, when this speech was given.

"(Y)et another pretzel of illogic:

If, in fact, the Taliban is able to collapse the existing government, which is cooperating with us in keeping the bad guys from being able to do damage to us, then that becomes a problem for us.

Enough of a “problem” to qualify as an enemy and threat to our interests which, if we remember correctly, count among them “not having the fundamentalist swine who harbored bin Laden while he plotted to murder 3,000 of our countrymen and refused to hand him over afterwards become the government of Afghanistan again?”

Because, and once again correct us if we’re wrong, that is their declared goal and exactly what they’ve been trying to do every fucking last day since we kicked them out of government.

So let’s see if we get this straight: The Taliban are not our enemy unless they continue to do what they’ve been doing for the last ten years and show no signs of stopping to do ever, but right now, while they’re doing just that, they’re not the enemy?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

12/21

re: "Bolton: Biden's Statement that Taliban Not Our Enemy Was No Gaffe"

Pamela Geller at Atlas Shrugs (" Evil is made possible by the sanction you give it. Withdraw your sanction. ") agreed with Amb. Bolton's characterization.

Money quote(s):

"The Taliban does not share Western values, goals, objectives. The Taliban's playbook is the qur'an and its stated aims.

The whole idea of a moderate Taliban or a moderate Islam is false"

Reasonable people can disagree whether or not there can be a moderate Islam.

(CAA believes in it on alternating days, himself.)

"Never mind their role in 9/11. Never mind their hosting al-Qaeda camps and working with al-Qaeda.

It amounts to surrender, to prostration before the jihadist enemy.

Now, we know old Joe is none too bright, but here Bolton explains: this was no gaffe."

And here's why:

"Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said Tuesday that Joe Biden’s statement that the Taliban is not America's enemy in Afghanistan was not a gaffe, but instead the vice president was “articulating what the White House strategy is.” Biden made his remarks in a recent Newsweek interview, but the Obama administration is saying they were taken out of context

“I don’t think this is a gaffe by Joe Biden — I think he is articulating what the White House strategy is — I think they know exactly what they are trying to do,” Bolton told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren. “They are trying to redefine the terrorist threat to be a limited group of al-Qaida people along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

“They are going to redefine Taliban away from that — they are going to ignore Taliban in the Arabian Peninsula, and al-Qaida in Iraq, and al-Qaida in North Africa,” Bolton said. “And they’re going to say it’s just that one little thing: We’ve killed Osama bin Laden — the war on terror is over.”"

Based upon my own sporadic observations regarding Vice Pres. Biden's tendency to "gaffe," I wouldn't urgently disagree with Amb. Bolton's assessment.

VP Biden sometimes says things that suggest he's regurgitating, in his own words, the substance of things about which he's been briefed. Specifically, I'm thinking about his remarks a few years ago about the H1N1 flu virus and air travel.

He seems to speak uncomfortable truths, as he understands them and based upon some frank and factual briefings (i.e., not for public distribution), and wholly without regard for the political, economic, or diplomatic fallout. Indeed, he says them without any apparent consciousness that there could be, even should be, such repercussions.

"Bolton said the Taliban treats anyone who does not agree with them horribly."

Word.

""It reminds me of Vietnam. Remember Sen. George Aiken, the Republican of Vermont? It was clear to him that we didn’t have the stamina to go on and actually win,” Bolton said. “So the George Aiken strategy: We’ll declare victory and get out — that is what the administration is going to do in the war on terror. Having redefined who the terrorists are and having said the Taliban is not our enemy, they’re going to say we have won and the war is over.""

And, if we'd put some of our HVT Taliban officials on the other side of a conference table, gotten them to publicly disavow Al Qaeda and UBL, and made it clear that if we ever had to come back to Afghanistan it would not be with gentle words and reconstruction budgets....

....all of that before we'd spent a decade nation-building and taking casualties, then this would have been a reasonable, if limited, outcome for our intervention there.

"The jihad against the U.S. will continue all over the world, not just in Afghanistan."

12/21

re: "Losing a war and a peace"

UNCLE JIMBO at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") explained some quite simple concepts.

Money quote(s):

"We are making a deal with the Taliban, a losing one. Our Commander in Chief fundamentally misunderstands the way wars must be fought, and I am not talking about strategy or tactics. I am talking about winning or losing."

There is, for those who haven't been following along at home, quite a difference between the two, and the consequences will echo into eternity.

He goes on to admonish the president:

"You can't end wars Mr. President; They are won or lost. Afghanistan has been lost."

In all fairness, he also notes:

"I am not certain at all that the war in Afghanistan could have been won."

Not as it's been fought; it seems reasonable to question whether the proper action in Afghanistan should have been simply a punitive expedition to schwack a sufficient number of alligators, rather than attempting to drain, and subsequently gentrify, the swamp.

"We will now cede the field of battle, where so much US blood has been shed, to the enemy. And we will sue for something less than peace from the very people who hosted the planning and execution of 9/11."

I suppose the inevitable question, should this proceed as it appears envisioned, is how long before Taliban-sponsored and sheltered embark on their offensive against the U.S.

That and how much money we will pay in tribute, er, development assistance during the interim.

"It has been a long decade of war and we are all tired, none more so than the troops who have marched to the sound of gunfire over and over again. They, with the steadfast support of a real Commander in Chief George W. Bush, won the war in Iraq."

1/5

re: "Writing off Afghanistan, too"

Kori Schake at Shadow Government ("Notes from the Loyal Opposition") saw the writing on the wall.

Money quote(s):

"The evident confusion among senior policy makers in the administration prefigures the administration's cratering commitment to win the war in Afghanistan. The White House has narrowed its war aims from defeating all threats to only defeating al Qaeda. The Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, testified to Congress this week that the deaths of senior al Qaeda leadership have brought us to a "critical transitional phase for the terrorist threat," in which the organization has a better than 50 percent probability of fragmenting and becoming incapable of mass-casualty attacks.

The White House appears set to use progress against al Qaeda as justification for accelerating an end to the war in Afghanistan. Since the president has concluded that we aren't fighting the Taliban, just al Qaeda, no need to stick around Afghanistan until the government of that country can provide security and prevent recidivism to Taliban control. The president will declare victory for having taken from al Qaeda the ability to organize large scale attacks, and piously intone that nation building in Afghanistan is Afghanistan's responsibility.

This policy will not win the war in Afghanistan. It will not even end the war in Afghanistan. It will only end our involvement in that ongoing war. Because arbitrary timelines do not translate into having achieved the objectives that cause enemies to throw down their weapons. And it is the enemy ceasing to contest our objectives that constitutes winning. Interrogations with prisoners in Afghanistan have caused the American military to conclude that "Once ISAF is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable."" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

2/2

re: "Afghanistan: America's Willful Deception"

John Bernard at American Thinker (" a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans ") had harsh words for our wartime national political and military leadership.

Money quote(s):

"The battlefield is as fluid as diplomatic efforts to shape the outcome are convoluted. While diplomacy during peacetime can be described as the efforts between two national representatives to overcome obstacles to a good, healthy, and mutually productive relationship, diplomacy during hostilities cannot. "Diplomatic efforts" during an ongoing conflict are at best an oxymoron. The failure of two parties to work out problems with one another is what leads to war, and if war is the ultimate outcome of a failure of diplomacy, then it stands to reason that the successful outcome of the war can be defined only when one warring nation capitulates to the battlefield prowess of the other." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

War is sometimes described as the failure of diplomacy, and there's more than little truth in that. Diplomacy has also been described as the continuation of warfare by other means, and vice versa.

"What is truly amazing is that the level of morale in the ranks of our war-fighting community has remained as high as it has. High morale is not, however, an accurate indicator of how our military views our successes on this battlefield, especially at this point in history. The reason it does not is because this is one of the only times in our history when a draft has not been used to maintain numbers in the ranks. Those who have served both in Iraq and Afghanistan have done so willingly, and their overall perception of time served is generally more positive than that of conscripts." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

The result, although we are now engaged in disassembling and dispersing it, is the most experienced and professional army, in all components (regular, guard, and reserves) since World War II.

Granted, the army we had at the end of the (first) Gulf War was the product of both the Reagan build-up and the officer corps that overcame the post-Vietnam hangover, but we disassembled and dispersed much of that as well.

"(T)he lexicon has morphed. While success on the battlefield has historically been defined as victory, even the word "battlefield" has been carefully expunged from the public dialogue. Success has been co-opted by "compromise" and victory remanded to the dustbin of unacceptable words and phrases. Enemy prisoners of war (EPW) are now future leaders in the new coalition government envisioned by the luminaries in D.C. General grade officers have been carefully selected for their willingness to capture the vision and then translate it into conduct on the battlefield that reflects the intent of their commander in chief.

The American population have been exposed to military jargon they don't understand as well as historically incorrect details about Afghan society and Islam, and they have been force-fed these carefully manicured stories of successful encounters with Afghan society for at least eight years." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Damning assertions one and all, and none of them incorrect.

It was an American general, once upon a time, who said "There is no substitute for victory."

We've come a long way from that time, but not all progress necessarily represents an improvement.

"(W)e have had further confirmation of an ongoing effort by U.S. representatives to reconcile with the Taliban and to release battle-hardened Taliban fighters back to Afghan society. While we have chosen to abandon the battlefield in a quest for a magic potion to make the Taliban like us, they, are doing their level best to "explain" to us that they have no interest in peace, an example of which is the killing an Afghan "peace negotiator." They are also exploiting our weakness on the battlefield due to our apparent unwillingness to bring the fight to them!"

&

"(M)any questions are raised by all of this, but none is as important as this one: why did we ever let this government convince us that rebuilding Afghanistan was somehow better for the United States? This question is important simply because there are those of us who are serving in that part of the world who have been led to believe they are there for the security of the United States. Regardless of the apparent inanity of the mission, the overwhelming evidence of IED placement, VBIED traffic, the obvious lack of measurable support from the local population, and the incessant stories of moral and ethical failure in the Kabul government, these war fighters press on. The government that has compelled them to serve in a hostile environment owes them at least the ability to defend themselves when fired upon. The ROE, however, denies them use of the basic tools of the trade: artillery, close air support, use of organic weapons systems like the 60mm mortar, and even small arms fire if their proximity to civilians cannot absolutely guarantee safety for the civilians."

This is a legitimate question: Is rebuilding Afghanistan necessarily to the advantage of the U.S. and, if so, in what way? Simply making the assertion doesn't make it so.

"(T)he conditions in Afghanistan are hardly normal, and no matter how much the general grade officers and their counterparts in D.C. want Afghanistan and Afghans to reflect their vision for them, it isn't going to happen. One thing is certain: as the number of service members in Afghanistan is drawn down, the real threat to our war fighter community will grow exponentially." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

&

"The truth is, in spite of the narrative, the actual evidence suggests that things in Afghanistan are turning in favor of the Taliban. The danger to our forces will not only continue, but will grow in intensity as more and more control of the battle space is handed to the Taliban. And this giving over of control is a direct consequence of our having chosen not to hold the Taliban accountable on the battlefield -- a battlefield created by a failure on the part of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and other like-minded Islamic cells to choose peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world. It is also a complete failure of the remainder of the so-called peaceful Muslim ummah to denounce the violence perpetrated by these groups." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA)

A negotiated withdrawal with a Taliban-dominated (or coalition government which includes them), with the kind of exposed lines of supply and communications we endure in Afghanistan, is a recipe for catastrophe, subject to the meagre mercies of one history's most merciless foemen.

"Those in the highest levels of governance in this country and appointed to highest echelons of authority in the DOD have willingly rendered their consciences and their minds incapable of considering the threat, the motivation, and the determination of this enemy, and the proper response to the threat. Instead, they have done what too many men in this age have done. They have been seduced by a lie that allows their weakened character to take the less painful road rather than the road that would have led to victory.

And in so doing, they have purposefully deceived a nation and a nation's most valuable asset: its war-fighting community."

5/16

re: "The Obama Foreign Policy (Part I)"

The DiploMad ("Wracked with angst over the fate of our beloved and
horribly misgoverned Republic, the DiploMad returns to do battle on the world
wide web, swearing death to political correctness, and pulling no
punches.") began a valedictory series of posts about our foreign policy apparatus.

Money quote(s):

"My career in the Foreign Service began when Jimmy "Wear a Sweater" Carter was President; the Shah sat on the Peacock Throne; the Soviets and their Cuban servants were all over Africa, Central and South America, and the Caribbean; our economy was in the sewer; our cities drug and race-fueled combat zones; our military, a hollowed out racially divided horror; and CIA and State, under appalling leadership, could do nothing right internationally. And things only got worse: the Shah fell to the Muslim crazies; the Soviets invaded Afghanistan; Communism, Socialism, and Liberation were on the march around the world. The bon pensant knew the future belonged to the Soviets and the Japanese, while we sat in the dark, shivering in our cardigan sweaters, suffering "malaise," and praying Moloch would eat us last.

Since those dark "Carter on Mars" days, thanks to Ronald Reagan, with his optimism and ability to see through mainstream cant, our country underwent a massive social, economic, and political renovation that showcased an unmatched American ability to regroup, reinvent, and implement. Our economy came roaring back; our military reaffirmed its unequaled status; the Soviets, unable to compete with the American economy and technical wizardry, came crashing down; and mighty ten-foot-tall Japan could not match the United States for innovation and the
ability to put it to work at a dazzling speed. Even Bill Clinton learned not to fix a working model; he went along with GOP efforts to reform welfare, and poured money into sustaining and expanding the world's best special forces--as the Taliban and al Qaeda soon discovered. The confused waning days of the Bush administration, alas, pried opened the Gates of Hell once more; the inept McCain campaign couldn't close them, allowing the malevolent Obama misadministration to escape the Depths, and take over the White House--immediately making us nostalgic for Carter. We are in crisis mode, again." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Persons quibbling with the above summary of those several decades will reveal far more about themselves than they might wish.

"In its defense, let me say that to call it a policy designed for America's defeat gives it too much credit. My experience at State and the NSC, has shown me that most Obamaistas are not knowledgable enough to design anything. Foreign policy for the Obama crew is an afterthought. They really have little interest in it; many key jobs went vacant for months at State, DOD, CIA, and the NSC. The Obama foreign policy team is peopled by the "well-educated," i.e., they have college degrees, and as befits the "well educated" in today's America, they are stunningly ignorant and arrogant leftists, but mostly just idiots. They do not make plans; they tend to fly by the seat of their pants using a deeply ingrained anti-US default setting for navigation. They react to the Beltway crowd of NGOs, "activists" of various stripes, NPR, the Washington Post and the New York Times. Relying on what they "know," they ensure the US does not appear as a bully, or an interventionist when it comes to our enemies: after all, we did something to make them not like us. Long-term US allies, e.g., Canada, UK, Israel, Japan, Honduras, Colombia, on the other hand, they view as anti-poor, anti-Third World, and retrograde Cold Warriors. Why else would somebody befriend the US? Obama's NSC and State are staffed with people who do not know the history of the United States, and, simply, do not understand or appreciate the importance of the United States in and to the world. They are embarrassed by and, above all, do not like the United States. They look down on the average American, and openly detest any GOP Congressman or Congresswoman, especially
Representative Ros-Lehtinen and Senator DeMint, who dares question their wisdom. They have no problem with anti-American regimes and personages because overwhelmingly they are anti-American themselves (Note: I exempt Hillary Clinton from the anti-American tag; she is just ignorant--more on that in my next posting)." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Bear in mind that Rep. Ros-Lehtinen is the Chairman of the House Committee of Foreign Affairs. For anyone who is a staff member at NSC or State to ignore her is about as stupid as ignoring gravity.

"Our foreign policy is not made in any real sense. It slithers out from this foggy fetid leftist primeval mire and "evolves" into the weird amorphous "policy" we now have. It is guided by The Anointed One's long-standing Triple AAA motto: Apologize. Appease. Accommodate. There is no understanding of the relationship between military power and diplomacy, between expending the blood and treasure of America and our interests. For the Obamaistas the topics of burning interest tend to be those far removed from the core national interests of the United States, e.g., treatment of prostitutes in Sri Lanka, gay rights around the world, the status of women in Africa, beating up the inconsequential junta in Burma, helping overthrow U.S. ally Mubarak, but doing nothing about the Iran-Venezuela alliance, the imprisonment of an American AID contractor in Cuba, the growing anti-Americanism spreading throughout Latin
America, the disintegration of the few remaining moderate Muslim states, and on and on. This leftist, anti-American disease is contagious. Just look at the recent statements by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, once a moderate middle of the road politician, now spouting rubbish about needing "international permission" to deploy US military power, undermining over two centuries of US defense doctrine, not to mention the Constitution. " (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

This stuff ("There is no understanding of the relationship between military power and diplomacy, between expending the blood and treasure of America and our interests.") is actually taught in (at least some of) our senior military schools, the war colleges and such. DIMEFILS, for the initiate. Strategy and Grand Strategy. The up-and-coming majors and lieutenant commanders, the lieutenant colonels and commanders, and the colonels and captains, the ones from among tomorrow's generals and admirals will be selected, are at least exposed to the concepts that can mean life or death for entire nations and alliances of nations.

These field-grade ("mid-grade, in State Dept. parlance) officers will have already proven themselves tactically and operationally proficient (or at least not criminally inept) by the time they are selected for these schools and colleges, where their studies will be at least nominally at the graduate and post-graduate levels.

And what do we have on the diplomatic side of the house?

The Institute for Peace? Not quite sure what they do, but has anyone else who's worked in Foggy Bottom ever noticed how often they seem to be having big parties and receptions over there across "C" Street at their post-modern building?

(The big catering trucks and the blocked lanes of traffic are kind of a giveaway. As are the hispanic waiters, bartenders, and waitresses coming and going from the Metro Station by GWU.)

Well, there's the Foreign Service Institute, which has a nice campus on the former Arlington Hall Station site (a.k.a. "the George P. Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center").

"The Foreign Service Institute is organized like a university and
consists of five schools:
The School of Language Studies
The School of Applied Information Technology
The School of Leadership and Management
The School of Professional and Area Studies
The Transition Center "

The key word in that passage is "like." FSI has deans, t-shirts, a registrar, and an attractive coat-of-arms, but it's not a university, not a college, not really a center of advanced or even (for the most part) undergraduate-level education. NFATC is what it says it is in the name, a "Training Center." It's the equivalent of a corporate training center.

Don't get me wrong, FSI training is in fact essential for preparing our employees to accomplish their missions when they deploy abroad to our more than 260 embassies and consulates. The language school alone would be worth the investment of staffing hours and funding. And I hasten to say good things about the FS and CS orientation programs as well as the consular training. Couldn't have done it without you guys!

But it's emphatically not the equivalent of any of the DoD's war colleges, or even the C&GS School.

Former SecState Colin Powell was a big believer in the notion of a training continuum, as befitted a career U.S. Army officer, and he led the Department of State long enough to make that notion part of the corporate culture. That's a good thing.

But there's still a lingering institutional prejudice against professional development education. As FSO blogger Two Crabs quoted from a recent article:

"The people who are successful in the State Department are people who
can be thrown in the deep end of the swimming pool and not drown; but the department never teaches them to swim, and the successful ones even come to discredit the value of swimming lessons, because they succeeded without them."

The FS Written Examination (now reflagged as the computer-based FS Officer Test) and the FS Oral Assessment do select for broadly- and highly-educated candidates. While eschewing the explicit requirement of a particular diploma or credential, the more years of formal education a bright FS candidate has completed, the more likely they are to be successful in the FSO accession process.

So our newest diplomats enter the Foreign Service already highly educated (graduate degrees or other post-undergraduate education such as law school, more often than not) unless they manage to wrangle a training assignment (or a sabbatical to take even higher education) away from the State Department they're never really going to get anything but training from FSI.

Training is not education. It's training. Nothing wrong with training; training is good. But training will only train students about how to do things or sets of things. It's a lot less likely to prepare diplomats to think about the why of things any more than their pre-State Dept. education already did.

Heretical statement: diplomats, like leaders, can be born to be diplomats or they can be educated to be diplomats. But even the born-diplomats can be educated to be better diplomats.

"The career Foreign Service is hapless. Many of the FSOs, especially the young ones, come from the same "educational" background as the political Obama types. Many have strong sympathies for the Obama view of the world because it is easy, it requires less work--thinking is hard. It is best to come up with long carefully nuanced memos regurgitating the most conventional of conventional left-of-center "wisdom," so that the powers above do not get displeased. Deny a
problem exists, then you do not have to do anything about it, "He is just an agricultural reformer . . .". " (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Hmm. My initial thought was the "agricultural reformer" line was just Castro, but it was used to label Mao as well.

(And it was "agrarian reformer" the way CAA learned it.)

At least I can't dismiss DiploMad's critique of career FSOs as more outdated stereotypical nonsense about striped-pants and passing cookies. That gets old, although, like Don Quixote, CAA will continue to tilt at that windmill until it finally falls like the skewered ogre it ought to be.

No, DiploMad's comments are up-to-date and Millenial. They encompass the transformational and (for those who can't avoid it) expeditionary diplomacy that currently encoils the Foreign Service.

3/15

re: "Soldier Murders Afghans, Generals Murder Soldiers"

Ralph Peters at Accuracy in Media ("For Fairness, Balance and Accuracy in News Reporting") pulled no punches in telling us what he thinks.

Money quote(s):

"For a final analysis we’ll have to wait until all of the facts come in, but it appears that a soldier who had served honorably during multiple tours in Iraq broke down and went mad in Afghanistan. We should not be surprised that this happened. We should be surprised that it hasn’t happened sooner and more often: The shock of this incident after a decade of hopeless, meandering efforts that have thrown away the lives and limbs of our troops while ambitious generals lie about progress, seek promotion, and engage in military masturbation is actually a tribute to our men and women in uniform out on the front lines (to the extent that “front lines” exist)." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Let's get up front, as LTC Peters does, that suspects and defendents are innocent-until-proven-guilty.

"(T)he amazing thing is how disciplined, patient and tenacious our troops have been. Given the outrageous stresses of serving repeated tours in an environment a brand-new private could recognize as hopeless (while his generals fly back and forth congratulating themselves), it’s remarkable that we have not seen more and even uglier incidents. The problem in Afghanistan isn’t our troops—although craven generals routinely insist that everything is the fault of “disrespectful” soldiers—it’s a leadership in and out of uniform that is bankrupt of ideas, bankrupt of ethics, bankrupt of moral courage—and rich only in self-interest and ambition.

If there’s a “battle cry” in Afghanistan, it’s “Blame the troops!” Generals out of touch with the ugly, brute reality on the ground down in the Taliban-sympathizing villages respond to every seeming crisis in Afghan-American relations by telling our troops to “respect Afghan culture.”

But generals don’t have a clue about Afghan “culture.” They interact with well-educated, privileged, English-speaking Afghans who know exactly which American buttons to press to keep the tens of billions of dollars in annual aid flowing. The troops, on the other hand, daily encounter villagers who will not warn them about Taliban-planted booby traps or roadside bombs, who obviously want them to leave, who relish the abject squalor in which they live and who appear to value the lives of their animals above those of their women. When our Soldiers and Marines hear, yet again, that they need to “respect Afghan culture,” they must want to puke up their rations." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Ralph Peters is one of the few military intelligence officers to make something of themselves once he took off the uniform. He's widely respected, in and out of uniform, as someone who at least tries to learns the lessons of history, who has walked a lot of this ground years before any of the rest of us, above all, who is unafraid to call a spade a spade, a bad idea a bad idea, and an enemy an enemy.

(If he had not invented himself, we should have had to invent him ourselves.)

"When I was a young officer in training, we mocked the European “chateaux generals” of the First World War who gave their orders from elegant headquarters without ever experiencing the reality faced by the troops in the trenches. We never thought that we’d have chateaux generals of our own, but now we do. Flying down to visit an outpost and staying just long enough to pin on a medal or two, get a dog-and-pony-show briefing and have a well-scripted tea session with a carefully selected “good” tribal elder, then winging straight back to a well-protected headquarters where the electronics are more real than the troops is not the way to develop a “fingertips feel” for on-the-ground reality."

From my reading about the Vietnam War, we re-invented the "chateaux generals" at least that early.

After all, there's a reason BG McMasters wrote his famous book.

"(O)ur troops are being used as props in a campaign year, as pawns by dull-witted generals who just don’t know what else to do, and as cash cows by corrupt Afghan politicians, generals and warlords (all of whom agree that it’s virtuous to rob the Americans blind).

What are our goals? What is our strategy? We’re told, endlessly, that things are improving in Afghanistan, yet, ten years ago, a U.S. Army general, unarmed, could walk the streets of Kabul without risk. Today, there is no city in Afghanistan where a U.S. general could stroll the streets. We may not have a genius for war, but we sure do have a genius for kidding ourselves."

As much a disciple CAA is about the multi-dimensionality of warfare (i.e., DIMEFILS, &tc.), it seems as if the object of the thing has morphed into more of an on-going development project, sort of like re-claiming a slum or ghetto, than is safe or sane. Re-fighting the Vietnam War was never the Republican's idea, after all; it always seemed to be more of a Democratic obsession.

(CAA always assumed this was because certain among the Democratic Party faithful wanted America to lose. Again.)

"Now we’re told that we have to stay to build the Afghan military and police.

....We’ve been training and equipping the Afghan army and the Afghan cops (and robbers) for ten years. In World War II, we turned out a mass military of our own in a year or so. The problem in Afghanistan isn’t that we haven’t tried, but that the Afghans are not interested in fighting for the exuberantly corrupt Karzai regime. Right now, our troops are dying to preserve a filthy Kabul government whose president blatantly stole the last election and which has no hope of gaining the support of its own people. Meanwhile, despite repeated claims that the Taliban is on its last legs, the religious fanatics remain the home team backed by Afghanistan’s Pashtun majority. (If the people didn’t back them, the Taliban would, indeed, have been long gone—we need to face reality.)" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Afghanistan isn't really a country, as we understand countries to be. It's a patchwork of tribal regions located between neighboring countries. The king or president is essentially the major of Kabul, with the limited power and influence that suggests. That mayor's influence beyond the Kabul city limits is a function purely of force projection and bribery. And this is nothing new. The tenure of each mayor of Kabul lasts exactly as long as he can avoid calling down the wrath of a tribaly power base.

"Sure, we whip the Taliban every time we catch them with their weapons (if they’re not holding weapons, we can’t engage, even if they just killed Americans). But we dare not attack the Taliban leadership in Pakistan, where it’s protected by our “allies.” And no matter how many Taliban we kill, they still attract volunteers willing to die for their cause. The Afghans we train turn their guns on us.

It appears that the staff sergeant who murdered those Afghan villagers had cracked under the stresses of a war we won’t allow our troops to fight. But the real madness is at the top, in the White House, where President Obama can’t see past the November election; in Congress, where Republicans cling to whatever war they’ve got; and in uniform, where our generals have run out of ideas and moral courage." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Aside from the congressional buffoonery where Gen. Petraeus was mocked and called a liar (by whom? do you recall?), the average American holds our generals and admirals in some regard. Having learned some of the lessons of the Vietnam War, the citizenry is typically in something of a hurry to treat our soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen with respect and dignity. And I think we over-do that for our top-ranking service members, giving them a double-helping of that respect rather than being properly skeptical or at least not unduly credulous.

If Ralph Peters is taking our top-ranking military leaders to the woodshed in this fashion, then perhaps this is deserving of some attention. It's not just emperors who lack rainment sometimes.

"That staff sergeant murdered sixteen Afghans. Our own leaders have murdered thousands and maimed tens of thousands of our own troops out of vanity, ambition and inertia. Who deserves our sympathy?

In war, soldiers die. But they shouldn’t die for bullshit."

Not being a creature unduly burdened by vaulting ambition, CAA finds within himself an abyssal dearth of sympathy for flag and general officers (not to mention SFSOs) who go-along-to-get-along and are too timid to tell their bosses what their bosses don't want to hear.

3/13

re: "Remind Me Again, We're at War in Afghanistan Because . . . ? [CORRECTED]"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner ("The one and only.") took issue with the Foreign Terrorist Organizations list.

Money quote(s):

"(T)he Taliban is not included in State’s listing of Foreign Terrorist Organizations — not the Taliban whose terrorism and safe haven for al Qaeda are the justification for continuing to have our troops fight and die in Afghanistan"

&

"I’ve argued before (most recently here) that Congress should amend the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force — the legal foundation for conducting U.S. combat operations in the War on Terror — so that the Taliban organizations (among others) are expressly specified as the enemy. But what’s the chance that we will be clear about who the enemy is if the administration can’t even bring itself to say the Taliban is a terrorist organization?" (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Recollecting from the dim recesses of memory, but we went to war in the territory of the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan in order to get at Al-Qaeda, the Taliban having declined to give them up to us when we asked nicely.

That approach having lacked much in the way of positive results, a U.S./NATO-led coalition went to war with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan since the two seemed unwilling or unable to extricate themselves from one another.

"(I)f the Obama administration were encouraging negotiations with the Taliban (it is) and even anticipating a settlement in which the Taliban were brought into the Afghan government (ditto), the State Department wouldn’t want to complicate that by naming the Taliban as a terrorist organization, right? So we are putting our forces in harm’s way in the War on Terror order to fight an outfit that we won’t call “terrorists” and that we actually see as part of the future Afghan government we are building."

8/25

re: "Marines May Face Prosecution For Peeing On Corpses"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ considered the motivations.

Money quote(s):

"The real crime was the felony stupid of videotaping it.

A lot of people seem upset by this. I think it's upsetting that now these guys are probably going to get cashiered over a stupid act. But the act itself doesn't really upset me.

The whole point of a rule against corpse desecration is that you show respect and honor to the fallen one. But what if that fallen one had been trying to kill you not ten minutes before, and in fact you had killed him before he killed you?"

Hmm. Actually, I'm not sure about the precise rationale for non-desecration as part of the law of warfare, but assuming Ace's reasoning is correct (and upon reflection, it probably is) it's not a stand-alone value. It's part-and-parcel of a larger set of values having to do with an adversary being a lawful combatant who follows the same (or a quite similar) set of values known collectively as the laws of war.

Little things like wearing a uniform, not targeting peaceful civilians, taking surrenders, treating prisoners humanely, behaving with honor, &tc.

(None of which is stuff the Taliban are particularly noted for.)

"I'm not sure there's any other way you can feel about a terrorist dirtbag who was just trying to kill you and your friends -- so you're not naturally going to feel that you should treat the corpse with respect.

Your training and discipline should kick in to supplement that and keep you from doing this, but your natural moral sense isn't there. Because, seriously, the hell with this terrorist."

1/13

re: "Not Very Helpful"

LTCOL P at OPFOR ("Fair Specimens of Citizen Soldiers") summed this up nicely:

"Putting aside the gross irony of the Taliban calling anything barbaric, this is an unwelcome development at an inopportune moment."

1/12

re: "The Latest Outrage"

Lex at Neptunus Lex ("The unbearable lightness of Lex. Enjoy!") offers a historical parallel.

Money quote(s):

"(M)en – good men- can descend into a kind of inhumanity when faced with a truly hated, fanatical foe."

&

"The Taliban, with their indiscriminate murders and their cowardly tactics, have probably earned a very great deal of enmity from those who have been grappling with them for going on eleven years now. The danger when good men confront evil is that, over time, they may become what they beheld.

None of the foregoing is meant to excuse.

But it may help to explain."

Despite the ill-judgment evidenced by this lapse of discipline, our marines have some considerable distance (astronomical units? light years? parsecs?) to go before they descend to the abysmally routine depths inhabited by the Taliban.

1/12

re: "More on Biden and His Fat Mouth"

Patterico at Patterico's Pontifications ("Harangues that Just Make Sense") is unimpressed by dangerous buffoonery in high office.

Money quote(s):

"The other day I noted how Joe Biden had run his mouth about who killed bin Laden, putting SEAL Team 6 at risk. I said: “there is no way to know whether this was an orchestrated ambush targeting Team 6. But it is an important reminder why it’s not just comedy relief to have cynical glory-seekers and complete buffoons at the highest levels of government.”

Well, the possibility of an orchestrated ambush looks much more likely — as an Afghan official tells the press that’s exactly what happened"

Among professionals, the heart of what makes intelligence information classifiable (i.e., secret, top secret, or confidential) is whether it discloses sources and methods. On the military side, this means not disclosing or publicizing information which reveals to the enemy that which the enemy can use against you. Operational details, procedures, capabilities; if it's public, it gets play. Somewhere. And if it's public somewhere, it's public everywhere. The information superhighway has off-ramps into some very bad neighborhoods, after all.

"In other words, a Taliban no doubt incensed at bin Laden’s death set up an ambush designed to target exactly the sort of forces that would respond to a report of high value targets.

Did the families fear this? You betcha."

Military families have, as they say, "skin in the game." They have an acute appreciation of their loved one's vulnerabilities to this sort of exploitation operation.

"When morons like Biden run their mouths, they put good men at risk. When the Obama administration decided to release all the information about who killed bin Laden, they put good men at risk."

This is why I hate working with amateurs.

(8/6)

re: "I Guess We’re Done with Afghanistan"

Frank J. at IMAO ("Unfair. Unbalanced. Unmedicated.") examines the menu of strategies, as only he can.

Money quote(s):

"So I guess we’re kinda leaving Afghanistan now. They’ll be withdrawing 30,000 troops in mission “Reelect Obama”. So did we win? I never understand these modern conflicts. Seems like it would be so much easier if we just trashed a country and left and declared victory; it’s this trying to help the country out that’s so complicated and makes it hard to tell when you win.

Except, with how the Taliban sheltered al Qaeda, shouldn’t the win conditions be the total extinction of the Taliban? Shouldn’t they be gone forever without even the possibility of them being genetically resurrected and having rocket launchers put on them?"

Aside from the issue of grafting rocket launchers onto Taliban clones (sort of a recurring theme or running joke at IMAO), this goes straight to the heart of a basic question of strategy: punitive expedition vs. defeat & reconstruction.

"(M)aybe this is part of that strategy. We’ll be all like, “We’re leaving Afghanistan now. Bye bye. Hope the Taliban don’t come back, but if they do, not our problem.” Then the Taliban will run in and be like, “Yay! We’ve chased out the Americans! The country is ours again!” Then the Americans troops will be like, “Ha! We were just hiding behind the bushes! Now we kill you! BANG BANG BANG!”

That’s strategery; I don’t know if Obama is up for something like that. That would take the mindset of winning, and the Democrats don’t really seem to have that. Like they kept complaining about Iraq taking away focus from Afghanistan, but as soon as focus went back to that country, all they wanted was to get out."

I guess I'd call this proposed strategy the "double-reverse whack-a-mole." It's a bit more oblique than most American military strategies tend to be, and suffers the serious drawback of relying on future leaders and commanders to actually implement it rather than stopping after the getting-run-out-of-Dodge phase of the plan.

"(W)hat exactly are our goals in the Middle East anyway? Do we really expect there to eventually be another country there than Israel that doesn’t act like it’s run by barbaric three-year-olds? I guess it could happen, but I think we’d have to be a stronger example than a country that just comes in and occupies until it decides it’s bored of it."

Whatever one thinks of this characterization of the nations formerly part of the Persian or Roman civilizations, the second point about setting examples sort of stings a little bit. Wonder why that is?

re: "War Crime! Taliban: Yes, We Murdered Brit. Scott McLaren (bumped)"

Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at The Jawa Report ("Sand people, get it?") enjoys moral clarity.

Money quote(s):

"Can you imagine the reaction from the European and American Left had this been a Taliban insurgent who was murdered at the hands of our soldiers? Not only would there be widespread protest, but our military would do the right thing and treat those responsible as criminals." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Our "right thing" and their (the Taliban's) "right thing" are two different.... things. Ours is based on a centuries of law of warfare which had quite different aims than that based on the koran.

"(T)here is a difference between us and them. We're the good guys. They are simply evil." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

&

"They captured him alive and murdered him in cold blood.

I get the arguments for abandoning Afghanistan based on the notion that the country and its people are just so backwards that there is nothing that really can be done. I also get the argument that if we don't send at least another 100k troops more than Obama's "surge" then there's really no point. I think these are legitimate arguments."

re: "Adventures in Smart Diplomacy, #2,783"

MikeM at Confederate Yankee ("Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state.") reminds us of just how many tentacles the Muslim Brotherhood possesses.

Money quote(s):

"The Muslim Brotherhood is arguably the oldest, most influential and most extreme Muslim organization in the modern world. Founded in 1935 in Egypt, its most modern jihadist incarnation began in 1952 when Sayed Qtub, arguably the modern father of the Jihadist movement, returned to Egypt. He had been studying, of all things, American Literature at the University of Northern Colorado. The behavior of American women he saw in movies and in society in general—remember, we’re talking about the early 1950’s—convinced him that western society and Christianity were depraved and turned him irrevocably toward Jihad. His writings had a major influence on Jihadist thinking, an influence still being powerfully felt.

With branches in at least 70 countries (Hamas is the Palestinian branch), including America, the MB is very influential to Muslims around the world. Fatwas—religious edicts—issued by MB mullahs (priests or pastors) are taken very seriously in the Muslim world. A 2004 Fatwa by MB Shiekh Yousef Al-Qaradhawi, for example, proclaiming the religious duty of Muslims to abduct and kill Americans in Iraq was widely observed and cost many lives.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s motto is: “Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.” Americans tend to analyze such things through the lens of America’s tradition of tolerance of all faiths and of the separation of church and state. Observant Muslims do not think of themselves as Egyptians or Yemenis—for example--who happen to be Muslim, but as Muslims first and foremost. Their nationality and loyalty to any nation tends to be far down on their list, after being Muslim, family, tribe, clan, and other concerns, if it registers for them at all. When Muslim Brotherhood members speak of jihad and “dying in the way of Allah,” they are not engaging in pandering or politically correct rhetoric but expressing their duty and willingness to die killing anyone they consider the enemy of Islam.

It is, for Americans, a bizarre paradox that American Muslims, people who identify themselves as loyal Americans who happen to practice Islam, people who would not take up the call of Jihad, are different from Jihadist Muslims, from Muslims who support the MB. In fact, these American Muslims are seen as apostates, fit only for death, by their more radical co-religionists. In fact, Muslims not taking the path of Jihad are not truly observing the dictates of their religion, not the other way around."

This may be the best four-paragraph explanation of the Muslim Brotherhood ever written.

If you've go the time and dedication, take a look at this as well.

"Consider that the MB certainly considers all Americans to be infidels, fit only for slavery, conversion to Islam and Sharia, or death. This is not political rhetoric read from a teleprompter, but the life and belief and passion of all observant Muslims who follow MB philosophy. They particularly consider women to be nothing more than chattel, the possessions of men."

Those of you are curious should look into the status of women taken prisoner or captive in war, under koranic observances. Apparently, the misadventure involved in being taking captive suffices to dissolve the captive's matrimonial bonds, thus absolving those who enslave them from committing the serious sin of adultery as they enjoy a bit of rapine thereafter.

How convenient.

"Prominent MB thinkers have already been speaking of completely Islamicizing Egypt, and calling her archeological treasures such as the pyramids and statuary “idols.” This is significant in that Islam brooks no depictions of Muhammed, Allah, or photographs, statues or similar images, considering it to be idolatry. They would gladly do to Egypt’s priceless treasures what the Taliban did to Afghanistan’s priceless and irreplaceable Buddhist statuary: destroy it as contrary to the Koran."

One would think that the pyramids and all the antiquities of Ancient (and not-so-ancient) Egypt would be safe, being such a money-maker and tourist draw for the country. Certainly there are plenty of Egyptians, in and out of government, who understand the economic realities involved in the millions of Egyptians whose livelihoods are dependent upon the successful exploitation of these pre-Islamic treasures.

Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that those who do understand Egypt's economic realities are going to be any match for those who combine a madrassa-style education (i.e., nothing resembling science or reason) with access to modern weaponry and high explosives.

re: "re: "This Week at War: Rise of the Irregulars" "

Robert Haddick at Small Wars Journal ("facilitates the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field") turns a frequent criticism on its head.

Money quote(s):

"Last week, the Washington Post's David Ignatius discussed how the line between the Central Intelligence Agency's covert intelligence activities and the Pentagon's military operations began blurring as George W. Bush's administration ramped up its war on terrorism. In his column, Ignatius took some swipes at former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for exceeding his authority by encroaching on turf legally reserved to the CIA. The Defense Department also was criticized for taking on too many diplomatic and foreign aid responsibilities as well. Ignatius expressed concern that without clearer boundaries separating covert intelligence-gathering from military operations, "people at home and abroad may worry about a possible 'militarization' of U.S. intelligence."

Ignatius missed the larger and far more significant change that continues to this day. In order to survive and compete against the military power enjoyed by national armies, modern irregular adversaries -- such as the Viet Cong, Iraq's insurgents, the Taliban, and virtually all other modern revolutionaries -- "civilianized" their military operations."

Read the whole thing here.

re: "Because We Have Nothing Better To Keep Obsessing About"

Jules Crittenden at Forward Movement just marvels.

Money quote(s):

"What a strangely marvelous thing it must be to be an enemy of the United States. Feted and exalted as folk heroes by Euro-weenies and the American left, lavishly rewarded by the United States itself upon eventual ultimate defeat, with a well-financed, no-heavy-lifting assist on the propaganda front.

For the record: The American Civil Liberties Union has filed exactly no lawsuits against al-Qaeda, the Taliban, the Saudi banking system, Pakistan’s ISI, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq’s former Baathist regime, the former Soviet regime, the current Cuban one, or any number of other associated entities for denying thousands of Americans their civil liberties or being complicit in the denial of a massive pile of American civil liberties up to and including life and the pursuit of happiness, though all of those entities at different times have operated and/or had assets and agents in the United States."