Marking 9/11

CAA's observances of the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 began much like that fateful day itself. It was a normal, pleasant, sunny September day in Washington begun with the usual morning routine and ablutions, followed by a fairly typical commute involving sluggish traffic and/or crowded Metrorail cars.

That day, as did today, a brand-spanking-new A-100 class had just commenced the day before at the Foreign Service Institute: the 169th today and the 104th back in 2001. So the not-particularly-cloistered hallways and common spaces, not to mention the over-burdened parking lot and cafeteria, at the Schultz Center were clogged with the shiny, smiling faces of the newly-annointed.

By the end of today's workday, reports from two of our Middle Eastern posts, in Libya and in Egypt, would bring news of angry mobs, damaged or looted buildings, and casualties.

Back on that fateful day, the trouble came much closer to home.

Even at this decade-plus remove, it is still difficult to put the 9/11 attacks into a bloodless, intellectual perspective. It's just too soon, the wounds are perhaps scabbed or scarred over but remain all too fresh.

So we remember our fallen, remember that many of them did not fall but had to jump to their deaths rather than burn alive, and are thankful for the many who survived. We remember the fire fighters and other first-responders, the police, the veterans-turned-private-citizens, and the passengers and crew of Flight 93 and while we mourn their loss we also celebrate their sacrifice and count ourself fortunate that such men and women yet live among us.

We also look at the last eleven years and marvel at the hundreds of thousands of American and allied soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and others who rallied to their colors and fought (and still fight) the wars their countries asked them to fight. CAA will take quiet (okay, sometimes not-so-quiet) pride in having once been among their number.

Are there lessons we should have learned from our experiences of the last 11 years? Almost certainly. But today the lesson that's over-shadowed my every interaction has been rage.

CAA isn't done being angry. While that's undoubtedly a huge personal failing on my part and something I should pray upon to Jesus most sincerely, it's not simply that I'm stuck somewhere between denial, grief, and acceptance. There's a bit more there that the subconscious is trying to get the intellect to comprehend.

America's enemies are still trying to hurt, humiliate, and if they can manage it, kill us. That much is clear.

What's also clear is that our enemies have a really hard time managing that anywhere close to our home shores and cities. Our enemies best efforts seem to be possible only in those places where we're trying to make nice with Janus-faced local government whose most impressive accomplishments seem to be their marvelously exact calculation of just how much mayhem they can plausibly get away with perpetrating against us.

CAA reads the news every day and wonders how anyone not blindered by wishful thinking can imagine the war is over yet. That's yet another reason he's so angry today.

re: "Would the U.S. pay Pakistan's military to help murder American troops if the U.S. had military conscription?"

Pundita (" US foreign policy for the 21st Century ") isn't actually in favor of bringing back the draft, but is angry enough to ask the question.

Money quote(s):

"Through it all -- throughout all the deceptions, denials, evasions, rationalizations and insultingly useless advice given over the years by Americans in civilian government, the military and academia -- there is one question relating to U.S. tolerance for Pakistan's proxy war against NATO and Afghanistan that towers above all others. And yet it's the one question that has never been asked of a public figure. So in the title of this post I've put the question to the public."

She continued:

"I don't mean to shift blame to Americans at large, nor am I arguing to restore conscription. I'm simply pointing out that if service in the U.S. military was compulsory, there would have been such a large number of Americans personally involved in the outcome of the Afghan War that there would have been no 'dark' or 'lost' years in the war while the U.S. was fighting in Iraq.

Combine this with the instant era in global communications, and I think the outcome would have been that factions in Washington that managed for the better part of a decade to hide Pakistan's proxy war from the American public would have found their machinations quickly overwhelmed by the volume of complaints from conscripted Americans and their parents -- many of those parents veterans of the Vietnam War, I might add."

CAA questioned, at the time, both the timing and utility of our Iraq intervention back in the 2002-3 timeframe, both before and during his deployment there to.

While the 23 writs of the Iraq War Resolution sufficed as justification for the invasion, whether Afghanistan should have been put on a back burner (as opposed to a more general mobilization, if both campaigns were so urgently needful) is a good set of questions.

"I'm not arguing for conscription but I am asking whether it's possible for the United States to field an all-volunteer fighting force that's not treated as a mercenary army. The question needs to be answered."

Americans, as a people, have not (since Vietnam, when it was even less true) treated the AVF as mercenaries.

That privilege seems reserved to the inside-the-beltway folks, big picture thinkers, whose connections to the folks who do the deploying, fighting, and dying, are tenuous at best.

(The crocodile tears of the national media elite remain wholly unconvincing.)

"If you want to run with the fiend thesis, it's possible the entire problem of the U.S. approach to Pakistan could be solved by deploying a contingent of exorcists around various civilian government and military buildings, lobbying firms and academic institutions in Washington and Brussels.

But if you pooh-pooh the idea that Hell somehow got loose in those two seats of power you might want to opt for the only other proposition I can see that covers all the bases. This is that U.S. soldiers wouldn't be treated with such contempt if they weren't considered disposable; i.e., as mercenary hirelings. And as corollary that this treatment wouldn't occur if U.S. military service was compulsory."

The "fiend thesis" seems to have been that our decision-makers and strategy-setters have come under actual demonic and diabolical influence.

(CAA can neither confirm nor deny that.)

As touched as CAA is by Pundita's solicitousness on behalf of the troops and their welfare, sometimes an army has to be used. That puts men (and women) at risk. Troops understand that, they just ask that their risks be justified and not wasted.

When an army is used in an expeditionary fashion, as a furtherance of some national policy or another, the risks multiply.

12/17

re: "Afghanistan and Honor"

GRIM at Blackfive ("the paratrooper of love") asked the hardest questions about Afghanistan.

Money quote(s):

"I asked a question at the end of the last post. The consensus from you ladies and gentlemen is... let it go. We've spent almost three thousand American, UK and NATO soldiers' lives there. That's a hard thing to walk away from.

Not that you're wrong."

In business, the concept is "sunken costs."

(It means not throwing good money after bad.)

But it doesn't mean it won't leave a bad taste in your mouth for some time afterwards

"The logistics have never worked, except for illegal goods whose value is exaggerated by artificial scarcity. Moving them into legitimate markets was never an option. Take a look at the railroad situation. They have no seaports, so rail roads are the next best thing. Of their neighboring countries, China is on a different track gauge; Pakistan and nearby India are on another; Iran is on a third; only the former Soviet states share their gauge. But that means a vast distance to the nearest seaport, and connection to global trade; or else, investment in the kind of infrastructure needed to hook up with the several other lines on offer."

Grim is talking about logistics in terms of integrating Afghanistan, and its economy, into the wider global economy; in other words: nation-building.

The same problems complicate the logistical effort necessary to support our military (and diplomatic) efforts in Afghanistan.

"If we walk away from the dead, though, there is a debt of honor owed. We must have a reckoning with those who led us to this place."

The same could have been said about our war dead from Vietnam, a reckoning long overdue.

2/1

re: "That's An Excellent Point, LTC Peters"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("From deep inside the foundations of our Republic's capital city") listened, as we all should, to the inimitable LTC (Ret.) Peters, speaker of uncomfortable truths.

Money quote(s):

"While channel-surfing TV news programs this morning, I caught a few seconds of the retired Army officer and writer/columnist Ralph Peters commenting on the Afghanistan situation and how it forces us into a highly troubled relationship with Pakistan.

Quoting him from memory, he said this:

“When I went to Command and General Staff College, I would have flunked out if I proposed to put 100,000 troops at the end of a single supply line that ran through a thousand miles of hostile territory.”"

This why we keep having to put up with Pakistan.

"After ten years, we still haven't found an alternative to routing all our Afghan-bound truck convoys from the port of Karachi through the Khyber Pass, thereby putting ourselves at the mercy of Pakistan's ISI and its Taliban allies. Shouldn't the CGSC have revoked some diplomas by now?"

Not having a Leavenworth diploma to put at risk, I will venture that the decisions, and the decision-makers, that are relevant are not at the CGSC-graduate level. They are at the war and electoral college level. These are policy and grand strategy-level questions, and they are putting the operational cart in front of the logistical horse.

9/24

re: "Next: Drone Strikes on Pakistan's ISI?"

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD at The American Interest's Via Meadia ("Walter Russell Mead's Blog") really put his brain to work with this one.

Money quote(s):

"If you read recent statements by senior US officials on the relationship between Pakistan’s ISI and attacks on US and NATO interests, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that a state of war exists between an agency of the government of Pakistan and the United States of America." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Remember, it can still be a war when one side isn't fighting back.

"One should be clear about this; attacks on embassies and on military personnel and positions are acts of war. They are not college pranks, they are not “signals”, they are not robust statements of policy disagreement and they are not bargaining chips in an extended negotiation. They are acts of force in violation of international law and they can legitimately be met by acts of force and war in return." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

As I noted on Facebook yesterday (paraphrasing aeklus' "the phrase "act of war" is really a political, rather than legal distinction"):

"Casus belli denotes a political decision rather than a legal consequence. It's a reason to go to war only if we say it is."

"(R)etired senior officials of the ISI at different times, and they make no bones about their attitudes toward the United States. They are our enemies and they are not ashamed to say so. They believe they have grounds: the US in their view is a treacherous ally which has never fully backed Pakistan in what they believe to be an existential conflict with India, and that today the US is openly in India’s camp, supporting its nuclear program, its global ambitions, and pursuing an Afghan policy which increases Indian influence in direct opposition to Pakistan’s efforts to ensure a friendly government in Kabul when the Americans leave. Moreover they believe that America is a power that is fundamentally hostile to Islam, and that our invasion of Afghanistan was an act of wanton mayhem which threatens the sovereignty and security of Pakistan and which has cost Pakistan untold billions of dollars, far exceeding any US aid.

While these views are not universally held in the Pakistani military and government, they are prominent — perhaps central — in ISI strategy, and it is clear that the rest of the Pakistani government either cannot control the ISI or does not wish to." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Regardless of what they believe, from over here in the cheap seats it's obvious that the U.S. cares very little about Pakistan, certainly not enough to conspire against it with India, except insofar as Pakistan is necessary to our military efforts in Afghanistan. Period. Full stop.

(So just get over your bad selves.)

"The United States has generally also tried to run its Pakistan policy in ways that allow a split consciousness. On the one hand, we know much of what the ISI is up to while US forces seek to kill people that the ISI regards as colleagues and allies. On the other hand, we push the Pakistani military command to limit the space in which the ISI is permitted to operate and to collaborate with us on those areas where collaboration remains possible. There are, after all, some groups we both want to defeat. In a sense we try to exact the highest price possible for our willingness to turn a blind eye to ISI activities of which we disapprove.

This is the ugly logic of war." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Did no one ever tell you that war is an ugly thing?

Okay, you already know about the John Stuart Mills quote, right? Good. Moving right along....

"“Frenemies” are part of the international scene and have been for thousands of years.

But US-Pakistan relations seem to be moving past the “Bosom Buddy” stage to something sharper. When the nation’s most senior military official, a man who follows US-Pakistani relations closely and speaks frequently with the head of the Pakistani military, makes the kind of charges in a public forum that Admiral Mullen has done, it is no longer possible for either side to pretend that nothing is happening.

The United States is telling Pakistan that something must change. It is not, however, clear just how committed we are to this contest with the ISI. If the bottom line for the United States is that Pakistani cooperation is essential for our Afghan policy to work, the Pakistanis will play this card for all it is worth." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Y'know, when Adm. Mullins' made that statement I figured it was better than even odds that he'd was just about to retire in order to "spend more time with his family."

"The current tussle between the US and Pakistan involves an effort by the Americans to invoke the stated threat of a military aid cut off and the implied threat of a full-bore US realignment with India to force Pakistan to give up at least part of its fifth pillar: the links to terror and guerrilla groups and the use of these groups in Afghanistan.

There seems to be a genuine division in Pakistan about how to respond. There are some who see the present national strategy as suicidal (the Via Meadia view, by the way) and want to use the American threat as a way to force ISI hands off the levers of power and call a halt to activities in both India and Afghanistan that hurt rather than help Pakistan in their view. These are nice people, but there are not enough of them to swing the debate.

Then there are those who want to temporize: always in the past it has been possible to buy off the Americans with a few pretty gestures or even occasionally a real concession. Throw them a few more Al-Qaeda officials, give them a bit more help eradicating some rebel units you also don’t much like in the tribal areas, and guilt-trip the Americans into more aid.

There are those who think the Americans are bluffing: that America needs Pakistan so badly to get out of Afghanistan that Pakistan can safely defy the Americans at minimal cost.

And finally there are those who think that America is Pakistan’s enemy. Either for religious reasons (we are the leader of a global western and Christian assault against Islam as they see it) or national ones (we have decisively chosen to take India’s side) we are hostile to Pakistan and our cooperation and aid is intended to confuse Pakistanis, gain an intelligence edge and, quite probably, prepare ourselves for a strike to destroy or capture their nuclear weapons." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

America is only Pakistan's enemy if Pakistan makes us one. It's that simple. Afghanistan itself didn't become our enemy until it became the sanctuary state for those who attacked us on 9/11, and stopped being treated like an enemy as soon as a non-Taliban government was established.

"One must then ask what Admiral Mullen and his colleagues (who surely understand the basic facts of Pakistani national security policy better than a humble blogger) hope to achieve by ratcheting up the pressure in this public and official way. The most likely theory: they believe the last group of Pakistanis who think of America as a strategic enemy (presumably the ones responsible for supporting the recent attacks) are not yet strong enough to dominate Pakistani policy making. Forcing a showdown will lead the other groups in Pakistan to clip the wings of the ISI-types who might welcome an open breach. That won’t be enough to stop the ISI from playing games, but it may limit how far they dare to go.

One hopes this calculation is correct, but it would be unwise to underestimate the degree to which many Pakistanis think they have the US in a trap, how deeply a culture of brinkmanship has embedded itself into Pakistani security thinking, and how much contempt many Pakistani decision-makers feel for many of their US counterparts.

The ISI and its allies just might not back down. At that point, the US would face some extremely difficult choices — although there are plenty of people in the US armed forces and diplomatic corps who are angry enough with Pakistan at this point to make and to implement those choices." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.

9/23

re: "In Your Face"

Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club ("the blogger formerly known as Wretchard") explained our logistical and political difficulty.

Money quote(s):

"Translation: Both you and I know we’ve stabbed you in the back, but keep paying us and like it.

How can Islamabad have the temerity to act like this? Well consider their hand. Pakistan’s biggest ace in the hole lies in being able to hold Afghanistan, Barack Obama’s strategic centerpiece in his war against terror, hostage. The full price of waging operations in an area that can’t be supplied from the sea has become apparent. America is maritime power and to conduct land warfare without being able to look back on the sea is to forgo a major source of strategic strength. In fact Afghanistan is the only major military operation in US history, apart from the Indian wars, in which America had to supply its troops largely through a foreign power’s sovereign territory.

That choice to shift emphasis to Afghanistan gave Pakistan veto power over the major part of NATO’s ground effort. Its multinational character made it a particularly expensive political investment. And it was all conditional on Pakistan’s support."

How's that working out for us?

9/23

re: "RQ: What Do FSOs Do When Not At Work?"

OSB at The OpSec Blog ("focused on security issues, safety overseas, and privacy online… and perhaps a few tidbits here and there about being a Specialist if I’m feeling uninspired") answered a reader's questions:

"What do Foreign Service Officers/Specialists do when they’re not working? How is the social scene? Do FSOs tend to clump or do they “go local”?"

Money quote(s):

"(I)t depends a great deal on where one is posted. Those serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Pakistan (AIP) will not be going off the compound very much. Each post has its own unique social culture. Even in places I wouldn’t consider very dangerous, sometimes the current work force just isn’t interested in going out much. Other times the embassy community is very tight knit and very supportive of one another (there’s something about being trapped together in Lagos that really brings a group of Americans together…)."

True. Oddly, the worse (for relative values of "better") a post is, the more likely that post will have a more closely-knit embassy community. The fewer opportunities there are for activities (travel, sight-seeing, safety) outside the embassy, the more they will fall back on their own resources. Some really nice Western European posts don't have that cohesive a community simply because the people assigned there have so many other things to do, either traveling out of town on a weekend or on the town after work hours.

"In my opinion, holing up in your government housing is a good way to go crazy during your tour. Participating in the embassy community, while not only one of the Foreign Service dimensions, is a good way to network both for yourself and your family."

In the Army, we called people like this "barracks rats." Don't be a "barracks rat."



9/22

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: "General Fuller's Career-Ending Message for Americans"

Fred J. Eckert at American Thinker ("a daily internet publication devoted to the thoughtful exploration of issues of importance to Americans") considered the message and the messenger.

Money quote(s):

"Major General Peter Fuller's career-destroying offense was to publicly criticize Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai for saying during an October 22nd interview with Pakistani news media that if the U.S. and Pakistan got into a war, he and Afghanistan would side with Pakistan in fighting against the United States."

You've got to figure that a three-star general has had plenty of experience in considering, and rejecting, the impulse to make career-destroying public statements. Any officer (military or otherwise) has to develop a facility for picking ones battles. Is this the hill I want to (figuratively) die on? Is this the sword I want (my career) to fall upon?

Some issues are going to be worth it. For someone in MG Fuller's position, he must have judged it was.

"General Fuller also referred to Karzai's being "erratic," expressed hope that Afghanistan's next leader will be more "articulate," said he thought Afghan government leaders are "isolated from reality" in their expectations of what America should expend in that country, and said those Afghan leaders "don't appreciate" the sacrifice that the United States is making in "blood and treasure" for the people of their country."

Retiring as a major general whose last official act was to speak the uncomfortable truth in response to a politician's dishonorable speech isn't exactly the worst way to go out.

"Everything General Fuller said that got him fired is true and needs to be understood by the public and by the media. Bear in mind that General Fuller, a man who has served our country as a U.S. Army officer for more than 30 years, was the deputy commander charged with turning Afghan's military into an effective fighting force. Knowing this, there is something lacking in anyone's sense of patriotism who does not understand and share the general's annoyance and frustration about Karzai's revealing that he would have no qualms about ordering Afghan soldiers trained by Americans to fight and kill Americans.

And yet...it is not the place of General Fuller to presume without authorization to make and conduct U.S. foreign policy. Clearly he crossed the line. Thus, it is beside the point and matters not one bit that what he said in public is true and very likely echoes what the superior officer who fired him and just about every other American military official in Afghanistan says in private." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Yes. And yet....

"The firing of General Fuller raises a much larger unanswered question, the question that should have been raised and discussed in the media all along from the very moment that Hamid Karzai publicly made his inappropriate, insulting remarks at which General Fuller and every other clear thinking American rightly takes great offense: what should U.S. leaders say and do when a foreign leader who owes his country's freedom, and perhaps even his own life, to American goodness acts towards America as one would act towards an enemy?"

Politics, and diplomacy, is the "art of the possible." Higher pay grades than MG Fuller's have decided to overlook (or swallow) the insult.

"When NATO and American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John R. Allen, explained that he was firing General Peter Fuller because of "inappropriate public comments," he may not have caught the irony. General Fuller's "inappropriate public comments" were a reaction to Karzai's wildly "inappropriate public comments" that insulted our country and are an affront to any and every American who has aided the people of Afghanistan."

11/8

re: "Is Pakistan At War With the United States?"

Walter Russell Mead at Via Meadia ("Walter Russell Mead's Blog") asked a tough question.

Money quote(s):

"Possibly, or at least part of its government may be.

The United States government believes it has evidence linking the Haqqani network, a terrorist organization which has repeatedly carried out attacks against US government personnel and positions, with the government of Pakistan."

Having evidence is one thing. Having major officials like Amb. Munter stand up and say so is a huge political step.

"Via Meadia supports a continued US-Pakistan relationship, but in our view the US has to be ready to walk away for the relationship to have a chance. As long as Pakistan thinks we have no option, it will continue to play gruesome games. In fact, we have a number of pretty good options, and it is high time we explored them in depth."

Mr. Mead raised a good point. In negotiations, if at some point you aren't willing to pick up your chips and walk away from the table, then at no point are you willing to walk away and the other side can get away, literally in this case, with murder.

_____

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.


9/17

re: "Hillary Clinton has serious concerns about Russia's parliamentary election vote. I have serious concerns about State."

Pundita ("US foreign policy for the 21st Century") enumerates her concerns about the State Dept.'s polities in Afghanistan.

She lists six concerns.

Her damning conclusion:

"If State argues it can't be held responsible because it doesn't write U.S. foreign policy and military strategy -- what kind of policy is it, what kind of strategy can it be called, when you're aware that your government knowingly pays another to murder and maim the very troops sworn to protect your life and your nation? This is not a policy or strategy issue. This is about demonstrating baseline human decency, as did the British military officers who resigned their commands to protest their government's betrayal of British troops in Afghanistan.

So I'd say that at this juncture the Secretary of State should be less concerned about human rights abuses in Russia and more concerned about the conduct of the agency she heads. The conduct has helped make a mockery of human rights in Afghanistan and the United States and specifically in the treatment of Americans serving tours of duty in Afghanistan and the Afghans serving in their country's military. And that's not even mentioning the mayhem that State has helped unleash on Pakistan."

Frankly, CAA would be reluctant to credit mayhem unleashed in Pakistan to anyone other than the Pakistanis themselves.

12/5

re: "For God's sake Amb. Munter, don't Go Native on us now"

Pundita ("US foreign policy for the 21st Century") has some sharp criticism of the Department.

Money quote(s):

"In yet another sign that the U.S. Department of State should relocate to Brussels U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter advised White House officials that President Obama should deliver a "formal video statement," according to White House officials interviewed by the New York Times, regarding the NATO air strike inside Pakistan on November 26."

Amb. Munter is a career professional diplomat who gave, from his in-country vantage point, foreign policy advice tempered by knowledge of local politics, sentiment, and conditions.

That's kinda/sorta his job.

(Disclaimer: CAA met, briefly and in passing, the aforementioned ambassador a few years ago.)

He was notably one of the senior FSOs who, fairly early, volunteered for service in Iraq, where he lead the first PRT in Mosul in 2006; he also served at the Baghdad embassy in 2009-2010.

I recall him stating publicly (paraphrase follows) that if senior leadership was going to ask FSOs to volunteer for service in war zones it would behoove them to lead by example. Or word to that effect.

"As to how Munter's highly sensitive discussion with White House officials came to be made public, I'd say that the U.S. Department of State is the prime suspect."

Leaking to the press is simply outside of CAA's area of competency. I got nothing.

"As to how State arrived at the idea that any advice they could give on Pakistan would be helpful to the United States is beyond me. State's track record on Pakistan since the Afghan War heated up has been awful"

Frankly, the United States' track record on Pakistan is something that needs to be examined holistically, from top-down decisions down to our working level relationships. The State Dept. doesn't set policy. It implements it, it provides advice beforehand and feedback as implementation proceeds.

"Moving along, Munter's advice was given on the 28th, just two days after the NATO air strike, when the U.S. Department of Defense was still trying untangle how the strike came about and exactly what had happened during the strike. So it's almost beyond belief that a career diplomat of Munter's experience would ask the President of the United States for a formal apology before the strike had been properly investigated.

Yet when it comes to State not much is beyond belief anymore. State officials have come to think of themselves as 'policymakers' even though State is only supposed to advise the White House on policy."

See my comments above. That being said, at a certain level and above, senior officials are not only implementers and advice-givers, they are policy-makers. This is just as true at DoD, the CIA, and the DoJ as it is in Foggy Bottom.

"This is no way to run foreign policy; this is no way to conduct any kind of policy and certainly not the way to run a war. This is headless horseman thinking, which means there is no real thinking at all; there is just a bureaucracy's obsession with expanding its turf by attempting to please scores of competing factions."

Part of the problem is the pretense that Pakistan is not part of a.) the larger campaign in Afghanistan; and b.) the larger "war on terror."

That being said, while we do send our honorable diplomats abroad to lie for their country, they must always take care to tell only the truth when reporting back to Washington, whether that is to the Department or to the White House.

12/1

re: "Why call it 'Pakistan'?"

The Anti-Jihadist at Jihad Watch ("dedicated to bringing public attention to the role that jihad theology and ideology plays in the modern world, and to correcting popular misconceptions about the role of jihad and religion in modern-day conflicts") had some tough words for Pakistan (and Sudan).

Money quote(s):

"South Sudan's hopeful creation as a new nation is a glorious moment, as well as a sobering one. We should remember as to why South Sudan's existence became necessary in the first place. We must remind the world over and over that the birth of South Sudan as a independent state was long required precisely because Muslims cannot long live amicably with followers of other belief systems."

Sudan is (or was) an amalgamation of, roughly, four (now three) historical kingdoms, sultanates, or whathaveyou and could probably use a little more devolution, leaving even less of its territory (and people) in the hands of "President" Bashir.

"South Sudan's secession from Sudan is in many way a mirror image of another 'secession' that took place over 60 years ago. In the waning days of the British Empire, British India was to be divided into two countries, a Muslim one and a Hindu one, and India was to be cleaved forever into those two parts."

A distorted mirror image, but a mirror image to be sure. The historical differences (and parallels) would suffice for a master's thesis (if not a doctoral dissertation).

"While the larger Hindu India has found a modicum of political stability, has enjoyed decades of economic success, and exports its vibrant culture via its booming film industry worldwide, its Muslim counterpart Pakistan flirts with failed-nation status.

Pakistan is in fact a nightmare of state-sponsored jihadist terrorism inside and outside of its borders. Except for a tiny elite, the country only offers unimaginable squalor and poverty for its people. It has featured a string of unbelievably incompetent and corrupt governments that have exported Islamic terrorism to distant continents, as far as the UK and the USA. Pakistan harbors the world's top terrorists who are allowed to live inside its borders with impunity, free to continue conspiring and plotting mass murder. Pakistan has launched three wars of aggression in its blood-soaked history, all against India, all of which Pakistan lost. Pakistan builds nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable missiles, which it sells the technology for to any and all comers, no questions asked. Pakistan sucks up gifts such as weapons and supplies, intelligence data from the US, and especially financial aid packages from the rest of the world, and either squirrels the money away into various numbered accounts, or passes along as loot to jihad terrorists and other enemies of the Free World. Barbarous shariah laws viciously run riot and leave an ever-growing pile of broken and dead bodies in its wake. Pakistan's police and military murder journalists who question how and why such a horrid state of affairs has come to pass. And on and on."

Pretty damning stuff, to be sure.

"(M)ay I humbly suggest that Pakistan no longer be referred to as "Pakistan", the so-called 'Land of the Pure". Merely mentioning the name is, in a way, tacitly accepting its existence, which right-thinking people everywhere should instantly reject. So, from this point onwards, let us call that place by a more culturally and historically correct name: "Muslim-occupied India". For India was a Hindu land for thousands of years before the invading barbarians of Islam appeared to seize Hindu lands and slaughter its inhabitants, which laid the groundwork for the eventual Muslim calamitous maladministration of that same land."

(7/9)

re: "No Sh*t? US State Dept. Issues Travel Warning to .... Pakistan"

Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report ("Jawas? You know, sandpeople.") re-posted the entire Travel Warning, but asks:

"(W)hat I really think is on all our minds is this question: What kind of idiot takes a vacation to Pakistan, anyway?" (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Just to be clear, can you imagine the kerfuffle if State didn't issue a Travel Warning for Pakistan?

re: "Osama bin Ladin's Courier Had Phone Numbers For Longtime Militant-Group Asset of Pakistani Intelligence"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ appreciated the gravity of this news.

Money quote(s):

"The bigger the problem gets, the more intractable it gets.

Pakistan is a country of some 130 million people, many of them terrorist maniacs, and not only has nukes, but acts as a nuclear Johnny Appleseed throughout the world."

This problem hasn't gotten any smaller since this was posted in June, as Adm. Mullen's recent remarks made clear.

re: "China: Please Repudiate Your T-Bills That We Own And Impose Trump-Level 1000% Tariffs On The Shoddy Crap We Sell You"

Ace at Ace of Spades HQ knows (as does China) that warfare is fought in many dimensions.

Money quote(s):

"This was sort of inevitable, and it's pretty bad. China has long supported every indecent country in the world, because America has alliances with most of the decent ones."

China has, and has had, for decades, a Non-Interference Policy (NIP). That essentially meant that it would do business with you and not worry overmuch about your internal affairs. Sort of the stance China would like the rest of the world to take regarding China's internal affairs.

"China has now made it official: an attack on Pakistan (terrorist hunting) is now to be taken as an attack on China.

They have extended their own security zone to the terrorist state of Pakistan, which means China is now officially a terrorist sponsor."

Ace is, as usual, a few steps ahead of the rest of the United States, including with regards to treating the state of Pakistan as an actual enemy of the U.S., rather than as a partner in the war on terrorism, &tc.

I'm not saying he's necessarily wrong, but perhaps prematurely right.

"(L)ucky us. We just found a trillion and a half dollars we thought we were in the hole for, but now we're not."

Chinese strategists plan for assymetrical operations in all theaters, all dimensions, of war, particularly against peer or near-peer opponents. Included in those battlefields will be the financial and economic dimensions. Being prepared to return fire effectively isn't the worst idea I've ever heard.

re: "US Consulate General Peshawar: IED Targets Two Consulate Vehicles "

Domani Spero at Diplopundit ("Just one obsessive observer, diplomatic watcher, opinionator and noodle newsmaker monitoring the goings on at Foggy Bottom and the worldwide available universe.") is smart enough to make some shrewd deductions.

Money quote(s):

"We note that the Saudi diplomat who was killed a few days ago was reported in the news media as a security officer of the Saudi Consulate in Karachi and was killed on his way to work. He was attacked by two men on a motorcycle. Sounds Ray-Davish enough? Except that the dead diplomat, apparently did not have a gun. If he had one, and shot first, he might still be alive today. Of course, he could have ended in a circus, too, but better that than dead.

I'm not advocating that our diplomats run around with guns but aren't they like -- sitting targets over there? Their protection is supposedly the responsibility of the host country, but this is Pakistan! And we're still talking about a civilian surge?

A note on the official vehicles - thank heavens they were armored to the teeth! And I hope no one is thinking of self-drive in POVs in Pakistan right now as a morale issue."

Personally, in places like Pakistan, I am advocating that we arm our diplomats.

re: "Peshawar: Bomb Attack On Consulate Car With No Serious Injuries"

TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat ("Giving my fellow Americans the view from my cubicle") has some good news about a bad thing.

Money quote(s):

"State Department employees in Pakistan have another reason to thank the U.S. taxpayer for the enormous investment he has made in heavily armored vehicles for our missions abroad."

We do spend a lot of money on security for our diplomatic and consular missions abroad. We make them harder targets for the bad guys. This helps keep our people alive.

It just doesn't do to make it easy to kill our people. It's good not only make that difficult to accomplish, but to discourage it whenever possible.

"(T)he bomb was about 50 kilos (100 pounds), which is more than large enough to destroy an unhardened vehicle. Happily, our well-protected vehicle sustained only minor damage, and the two employees riding in it were only slightly injured."

re: "A “Troubled Marriage”?"

Rand Simberg at Transterrestrial Musings ("Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!") calls them like he sees them.

Money quote(s):

"Pakistan is essentially at war with us, and has been for many years."

I'm not going to argue this one way or the other, but I am going to note that the "nation" of Pakistan is a geopolitical fiction. There's a territory on the map by that name, but it's really two or three different "nations" (for values of nationhood). There are definitely major factions (tribal, religious, political, combinations of the preceding, &tc.) at war with the West, with Western Civilization, with Christendom, and indeed with the United States.

"It would be an impossible military task to conquer the country, absent massive carnage, but I wonder if there would be some way to take away the nukes?"

That's a great question and I'm just going to quietly hope that there are some folks on the payroll who've given this some thought.

re: "A really bad day for bin Laden - and for Pakistan"

Robert Haddick at Small Wars Journal ("news and commentary on the goings on across the broad community of small wars practitioners, thought leaders, and pundits") cuts right to the essentials.

Money quote(s):

"The killing of Osama bin Laden is a satisfying triumph for Americans and the U.S. government. It would have been even more satisfying had it occurred in the weeks and months after the September 2001 attacks. But the fact that it took a decade to finally kill bin Laden should be warning to any who doubt the long memories and persistence of the U.S. government’s counterterrorism forces. They didn’t forget and they never stopped working on the problem.

The Joint Special Operations Command, presumably the command responsible for the mission, should get credit for demonstrating its ability to successfully raid targets virtually anywhere in the world. The CIA also gets credit for patiently developing the required intelligence and for reminding everyone of the value of battlefield captures, interrogations, and human intelligence." (Bold type added for emphasis. - CAA)

It was a job well done.

More than that, it was years of jobs well done and literally decades of capacity building from the disaster that was Desert One to today's robust and diverse special operations capacity.

"(T)his raid is a black day for Pakistan and its relationship with the United States. As the White House background briefing on the raid makes clear, the United States kept the raid completely concealed from the Pakistani government. Combine this with the fact that bin Laden was found in a highly protected compound in a wealthy town near Pakistan’s capital, and a stone’s throw from a Pakistani military academy. Americans will be right to conclude that Pakistan was bin Laden’s long-time friend and not America’s. What little support Pakistan still enjoys in Washington will now likely melt away. Pakistan will have to look to China, its last friend, for the support it will need to survive."

The political fallout from this will play out over the coming several years. Pakistan, as a unitary state, may not survive it; the hazards it faces are too numerous to mention.