Afghanistan: Why we should be there (or not), how to conduct the mission (or not) & when to leave

[GK .Dundas]

All too true this would require Mr Harper to have a pair .Come to think of it that pretty well describes both sides of the house .Not since the retirement of Deborah Grey at any rate.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Training the Afghans: Let's have some realistic expectations, please

I don't k now where this nonsense originates but the papers have been full of it ever since we began changing our national minds about Afghanistan. Modern, sophisticated armies require modern, sophisticated people: call me 100, maybe 500 years, when Afghanistan might have a modern  sophisticated population, and we can send the 'right' trainers. Until then we are going to train third world people to be barely adequate third world 'soldiers' - or we are going to fail, miserably.

Most of the 195± countries in the world that have armies at all have totally inadequate ones. That's why a few countries like Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark and so on are always being begged by the UN for technical and logistical troops and for air support.

Whoever thinks that we can, in any of your lifetimes, make the Afghans into modern, sophisticated soldiers with good logistics, command and control and air support is smoking too much of the stuff they grow over there.


Edit: typo  :-[

 

[Old Sweat]

I think the author of the piece that Edward cites should have done some research. Canada has been providing a gunner OMLT for several years and has had more than a little success. If the enemy can mortar and rocket our FOBS let along KAF, the ANA can be trained to be competent gunners. Petard has more and better details than I do, but I am aware of a few of the issues our people have addressed successfully. By the way, the last episode of Combat School showed an ANA D30 battery firing, supposedly in support of M Coy 3 RCR.

 

[The Bread Guy]

In case you're interested, here's the Bloc's motion in the House of Commons - debate started yesterday ....

Mr. Claude Bachand (Saint-Jean, BQ) moved:  That this House condemn the government’s decision to unilaterally extend the Canadian mission in Afghanistan to 2014, whereby it is breaking two promises it made to Canadians, one made on May 10, 2006, in this House and repeated in the 2007 Throne Speech, that any military deployment would be subject to a vote in Parliament, and another made on January 6, 2010, that the mission in Afghanistan would become a strictly civilian commitment after 2011, without any military presence beyond what would be needed to protect the embassy.

and you can read the debate here and here.  Glutton for punishment?  52 pg PDF of just the motion debate downloadable here.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Afstan: Two must-reads from BruceR.
http://unambig.com/afstan-two-must-reads-from-brucer/

The disgraceful failure of our major media’s Afghan mission/Coalition crazy/Bob Rae Update
http://unambig.com/the-disgraceful-failure-of-our-major-medias-afghan-mission/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Further to this post on the US Marines sending tanks to Afstan,

Where Canada and Denmark led…
http://unambig.com/where-canada-and-denmark-led/

the conclusion of a challenging article by a US Army officer:

Tanks, But No Tanks
Why heavy armor won’t save Afghanistan.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/11/24/tanks_but_no_tanks?page=0,0

…
It may be counterintuitive, but we actually need less armor, and we need to be more flexible and unpredictable. Instead of dictating that no unit can leave its base unless in an MRAP or MATV, we must allow them to use Humvees, all-terrain vehicles, snowmobiles, and ruggedized pickup trucks when appropriate. Knowing their movements are being watched at all times, units need to use deception, such as varying the time of day and night they move, their routes of travel, and the types of vehicles in which they conduct missions, to keep the insurgents constantly guessing. Insurgents cannot possibly booby-trap and watch every road, trail, and wadi in Afghanistan but they can and do hammer us on the few roads that will support armored vehicles.

This is a very unconventional war being waged in the most difficult terrain possible, and we are responding very conventionally. Instead of allowing such ingenuity and its associated risk, the coalition’s default response has been to add more armor and widgets to ever larger vehicles that are the very antithesis of basic counterinsurgency operations.

We may not be able to “defeat” the IED, but we can make it irrelevant. To do so will require us to rely upon the ingenuity and resourcefulness of the junior leaders who are most in tune with the local dynamics and terrain, not on technology or defensive-minded mandates designed to prevent casualties at all costs. Marginalizing the IED will also require higher commanders to accept greater risk and allow their subordinates to sometimes make mistakes — even deadly ones. But that’s the only way to start connecting with the Afghan people, who are the ones who will defeat the Taliban in the end. It’s time to start playing to win instead of trying to avoid losing.

Maj. Michael Waltz served as the director for Afghanistan in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense and as an advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney on South Asia and counterterrorism. He currently commands a U.S. Army Special Forces unit in the reserve component that recently returned from Afghanistan.

I cannot imagine a Canadian officer writing so bluntly in our media.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

He hits the nail on the head....change the focus

 

[George Wallace]

This really jumped out to me:

"....... my coalition colleagues often asked how then I proposed to "defeat" the IED. My initial response was that the question was wrong: We should not be trying to defeat the IED. Rather, we should be working to defeat the insurgency that plants them. "

 

[George Wallace]

An interesting comment here, in reference to Haiti, but should one that should be remembered by all Canadians when looking at our efforts in Afghanistan. 

Nigel Fisher of the United Nations urges Canadians to not give up.

"In a sense, stay with us because you don't turn around [a country] overnight."

LINK

 

[MarkOttawa]

Firing for effect on our media:

One type of Afghan progress; or, an agent in place?/Don Martin Update/Journalism Upperdate
http://unambig.com/one-type-of-afghan-progress-or-an-agent-of-influence/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[The Bread Guy]

An interesting comment here, in reference to Haiti, but should one that should be remembered by all Canadians when looking at our efforts in Afghanistan. 

Nigel Fisher of the United Nations urges Canadians to not give up.

"In a sense, stay with us because you don't turn around [a country] overnight."

[url=http://news.sympatico.cbc.ca/home/canadian_aid_to_haiti_gets_mixed_results/b38ca163]LINK

Good point - look at how long this one has been going on between two fellow members of NATO.  But most elected governments think (at best) in terms of years, not decades (or generations).

 

[The Bread Guy]

Bloc motion condemning new AFG mission crashes & burns...

The Liberals helped the Conservatives defeat a motion Tuesday that would have condemned the government for its decision to extend the Afghan mission until 2014 without consulting Parliament.

The Bloc Quebecois motion had the support of the NDP, but it failed to pass, going down 209-81.

Ahead of the vote, Bloc leader Gilles Duceppe said the motion was meant to show that Prime Minister Stephen Harper had "lied" to MPs. The Bloc and the NDP have accused the Conservatives of breaking a commitment to put future military deployments in Afghanistan to a vote in the House of Commons ....

More from Postmedia News here - the NDP's response, via e-mail, attached.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Afstan and Canada’s National Whatever, or, “Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless”
http://unambig.com/afstan-and-canadas-national-whatever-and-hopeless-hopeless-hopeless/

Here’s how the NY Times gives context in a news story on President Obama’s recent quick visit to the troops at Bagram...

Fair enough I’d say. Now compare with what appears in the Globe and Mail’s, er, report; I’ve emphasized certain words...

Get the picture the Globe’s authors, Incorrigible Paul Koring and Susan Sachs, want you to have? Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless. The piece is simply a deliberate and disgraceful, agenda-driven, effort to undermine Canadian support for the NATO mission.

As I keep saying the Globe is no longer a newspaper, see here, here and here. And it stinks.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Edward Campbell]

This, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail is, I think, the situation throughout the American led West, even, I suspect, amongst a solid majority of Americans, themselves:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/europe/no-one-believes-in-afghanistan-any-more-eu-leader-in-wikileaks-cable/article1825642/

‘No one believes in Afghanistan any more:’ EU leader in WikiLeaks cable

Brussels, Belgium— The Associated Press
Published Sunday, Dec. 05, 2010

Leaked diplomatic memos said that European Union President Herman Van Rompuy told America's ambassador that the EU no longer believes in success in Afghanistan, and that European troops are still there “out of deference to the United States.”

U.S. Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, in the memo released by WikiLeaks, quotes Mr. Van Rompuy as saying in December 2009 that the EU will wait until the end of 2010 to see progress.

Mr. Van Rompuy, the former Belgian prime minister who at the time was EU president-designate, reportedly said that “if it doesn't work, that will be it, because it is the last chance.”

“Europe is doing it and will go along out of deference to the United States but not out of deference to Afghanistan,” the memo said citing Mr. Van Rompuy. “No one believes in Afghanistan any more.”

America's European allies contribute about 30,000 troops to the U.S.-led NATO force in Afghanistan.

Last month, alliance leaders endorsed a plan to start turning over responsibility for security to Afghan forces next year. The summit in Lisbon, Portugal, said NATO's combat role would end in 2014.

Canadians believed in the Afghanistan mission in the autumn of 2001 when they gathered, in numbers never seen before or since, on Parliament Hill to demand that Canada “do something” to stand with the USA. The result was that then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien sent a battle group to Kandahar in 2002, then to Kabul and then his successor, Paul Martin, sent our forces to Kandahar again, where they remain for a few more months. Canadians, not just politicians, bureaucrats, soldiers and the commentariat believed in Afghanistan and in what we, Canada – not just the CF, tried to accomplish. The belief has vanished; it is gone from Canada, from Europe, from Asia and, I think from America, too. We agreed to the training mission “out of defence to the United States,” we agreed not because we, Canadians – including many (most?) Canadians inside the CF, think it will do any good but because our government fears the repurcussions of being first country to thumb its nose at President Obama's war.

It's a helluva way to run a war.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Actually the Dutch did it first .  Though they are thinking of coming back in a training role too, and President Obama has made an ask:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/11/us_asks_the_netherlands_for_se.php

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Edward Campbell]

Actually the Dutch did it first .  Though they are thinking of coming back in a training role too, and President Obama has made an ask:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2010/11/us_asks_the_netherlands_for_se.php

Mark
Ottawa

I thought - but it may have just been another brain fart - that we announced first, and then were, equally, the first to renounce our principled position.

 

[MarkOttawa]

All over the Afghan map
http://unambig.com/all-over-the-afghan-map/

Today’s essential Afghan reading (with apologies to BruceR. at Flit),
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Today%27s+essential%22+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.snappingturtle.net%2F&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a
from a very interesting post by C.J. Chivers at a NY Times blog, "At War":

'Informed Dissent: One Blogger’s Critique of the Afghan War

Registan.net
Joshua Foust’s blog on Central Asian affairs is anthologized in a new book, “Afghanistan Journal.”

FORWARD OPERATING BASE WILSON, Afghanistan — In 2006, as levels of violence in Afghanistan were rising sharply, a new voice entered the online debate about the United States’ military campaign. The Afghan war was then in its back-burner status, relegated behind the Pentagon’s fight in Iraq.

The voice belonged to Joshua Foust, an unknown American student of Central Asia who began posting his opinions and analyses on www.registan.net, a blog focusing on Central Asian affairs...'

As for all over the map:

'Petraeus Gives Gates an Upbeat Assessment'
http://nationaljournal.com/nationalsecurity/petraeus-gives-gates-an-upbeat-afghan-war-assessment-20101207

'Sober Take in Afghanistan
On-the-Ground Assessments Delivered to Gates Are a Contrast to Upbeat Views'
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704250704576005563544608074.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Progressives, war, and what happens if NATO pulls out of Afstan
http://unambig.com/progressives-war-and-what-happens-if-nato-pulls-out-of-afstan/

Progressives (e.g., our NDP) have been mostly against the war for quite some time. Sadly a lot of conservatives, now that the going has got tough, want out too. Some very pertinent points in an excellent, and wider, article this July by Sebastian Junger...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Afstan: “Bouhammer Predictions of the Surge Assessment”
http://unambig.com/afstan-bouhammer-predictions-of-the-surge-assessment/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Excerpts from a very thoughtful post by BruceR. at Flit, worth a full read:

Additional Afghan reading: Junger
http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2010_12_14.html#006813

I still haven’t seen Restrepo yet, but Sebastian Junger’s War was brilliant, I thought, as a portrait of young men at war. His article here on the response he received is also very much worth reading…
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-07-21/sebastian-junger-on-war-and-restrepo-in-afghanistan/

…I don’t understand why anyone would assume that the Tajiks and Hazara and Kabuli Pashtuns who still hate the Taliban will not fight for their homes if we left. They’re not going to be so easy to roll the second time, and the fact the ANA make poor doorkickers in our concept of ops does not mean they’d do just fine against similarly armed Pashtun insurgents, especially if we left a SOF/FID/CAS/Fires thumb on the pro-government side of the scales.

We shouldn’t confuse a lack of Afghan army enthusiasm with being cannon fodder in the south with a lack of determination to fight for the north when the time comes…

…When I deployed, I remember looking at this pretty analytically. I had a contempt for the Taliban I no longer have quite so much, and the reports from the field were rosier than even my bullcrap filter could compensate for, so it’s fair to say I was of a more optimistic cast than now. But when I could look at it coldly and logically, I basically saw what Junger saw… that, worst-case, fighting in the south bought time in the north, and ISAF’s presence could give those people after 20 years of war an indeterminate number of years of relative peace while we were there. Worst case, we could give them a shot at normalcy. To me that was enough of a humanitarian argument to justify my serving in ISAF. Still is…

…If the violence starts ramping up again in the summer of 2011, as it has every year higher than the year before, than we really need to start digging the fallback positions and figuring out what ANSF with ISAF enablers can realistically hold onto in the years to come. Because the only alternative will be an indefinite, fruitless Western commitment.

Mark
Ottawa