Miserable Donut’s Major John, posting in the comments here, is bothered that some people are using today’s attack on Bagram Air Force Base (which may or may not have been an attempt on the life of VP Cheney) as “proof” that our efforts in Afghanistan have been ineffectual—which, let’s face it, was always going to be the next move by the anti-war, anti-Bush contingent after the Iraq campaign was thoroughly “discredited.”
None of which means there’s any truth to the thing, of course. Writes Major John:
OK, time for me to chime in…I was the XO of Bagram AF from March ‘05- August ‘05. Then I got my dream job as S-5 of the TF that had 100 square km around BAF. I only mention this so you know where I am coming from here.
[…] the front gate to BAF is where trucks from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, locally/Kabul and everywhere else on Earth that can reach Central Asia by truck, gather. I spent an awful lot of time there, talking with locals, transiting in and out of base, etc. There are alot of people on base, and it is the central logistics hub for alot of ops. It has always kept things moving along – “resurgent Taliban†aside. This bomb sure didn’t change that.
The front of BAF is crowded, and if someone wants to blow themselves up—they will be able to. It is not some sort of symptom of nationwide insecurity. [Heard of lots of TB attacks in Mazar-i-Sharif? Konduz? Herat? The Panjshir Valley? The Salang Tunnel? Surobi Dam? No?] The waiting area is full of trucks, mom and pop shops, some soldiers from the JLC and MCT(s) trying to get everyone arranged in order and escorted to the search areas. There also happen to be a lot of kids. The kids hang out to watch, sell trinkets or cookies (I bought so many packages of the strawberry and orange flavored Iranian cookies that the little ones would see me walk out and they would run up and say “Major! You buy cookie?!†Heh, they knew me well. But I digress).
It would be like some American domestic terrorist setting off a suicide bomb made from fertilizer and diesel, in a van, at the entrance to a mall. If there is someone deranged enough to want to do so…
This had nothing to do with the fact that the VP was there. I am sure somebody knew someone special was there—when “special†aircraft or anything unusal landed at BAF, we always joked—“here come the rockets tomorrowâ€Â. And, usually, they did. It takes a bit of time to set something like that up—24-48 hours. Usually it was some HIG asshole or a local militia guy who was paid by the HIG to pop a few 107mm rockets at us.
If someone was going to try to get at the VP they would have had to go at least a mile to a mile and a half inside. I happen to know what the layout of the base is—and nothing short of a tank company could do it.
This was a feeble gesture that sure ain’t going to win any affection for the remnants of the Taliban. Blow up Pakistani and Afghan truckdrivers? Kids?! Oh mighty warriors, indeed. Nothing says invincibility and the favor of the Hand of God like blowing up truck drivers and kids.
I am so f$#&ing angry right now I can hardly type.
Keep this in mind when you read the inevitable alarmist media commentary that will be spun from this attack like so many strategically-placed spider webs. The goal of terrorist insurgencies, after all, is to create horrific spectacle, then hope that the spectacle is overdetermined by those who, for whatever their reasons, wish us to give up the fight. Sadly, there seems to be no shortage of such folk with access to media credentials.
When Dick Cheney noted recently that the Democratic Congress is doing its best to carry out Al Qaeda’s plans, he wasn’t being accusatory so much as he was descriptive. Because the practical effect of what the Democrats are doing is caving to the spectacle of terrorism—and this is indisputably the strategy of Al Qaeda.
Strong horse / weak horse. Choose one and saddle up, people.
****
update: Jesus. I thought they’d wait until at least the morning to turn me into a seer.
(h/t Allah)
“Strong horse / weak horse. Choose one and saddle up, people.”
Jeff,
I think you might be missing a third option for Gleen, Arrrianna, et al: Trojan Horse.
Thanks, Major John. Write an op-ed for a newspaper, please!
I guess this is The Spring Offensive after The Brutal Afghan Winter?
I think Afghanistan and the success Bush had there, and still has, is what set off the left in the first place. I got lots of emails from fellow writers, artists, activists–the usual suspects–denouncing this war before it began and predicting disaster for them and for us. Their obvious hatred for America is one of the reasons I changed teams, but that’s another story, as Major John would say.
They have never forgiven us for winning.
I sent this along to IP, Major John. Of course, you do realize that you are engaging in that most VILE of rhetorical maneuvers—argument by anecdote.
This is the M.O. of the wingnuts—none of whom deserve respect or civility, and all of whom are a plague on the nation (by proxy).
Consider yourself a festering boil that needs to be lanced and cauterized.
Don’t forget to add, Patricia, that HORDES of Taliban are just waiting to overrun the country.
Meanwhile, in our universe, whenever three of the morons gather, there, too shall be MJ’s folks to greet them with a 500-pounder.
They should slap a Kraft single on it so it’s a quarter-tonner with cheese.
The good Major is right. I just got back from a year tour stationed at Bagram, and I spent some time at the front gate now and then. The area where troops live at and where he most likely stayed was in no danger, and if the bomber had an ounce of brains he died knowing he was only killing his own people.
I understand Major John’s personal connection to this, but I think his analysis has a wishful thinking component.
The part explaining the actual ambience of the entry to the base is invaluable, because it explains the casualties. On the other hand, a couple dozen dead is not a minor hit. That kind of in-security is what led the Israelis to build their barrier, that kind of in-security in Iraq is called an act in an ongoing civil war.
No, and it is not a symptom that we have somehow “lost” Afghanistan (although later today I read the Corner re: plowing under the opium crop and that is apparently not pacifying the locals either).
It is an indication of a lack of security in the general area, the kind the US would not tolerate here, see below:
see Timothy McVeigh. And that is why materials that could be used for such thing are now closely monitored.
Well, that’s a contradiction.
Basically, when an American President (or Vice President, cf Nixon) goes to a foreign country it does not reflect well on the host country when the VP (or POTUS) is attacked in a motorcade (Nixon, again) let alone when the military base where he is staying is attacked by a truck bomb. When the Nixons were stoned in Venezuela, there was outrage at the Venezuelan government. I would expect we should be outraged at the Afghan government, and we should be asking ourselves what we need to be doing to get that country under control. It’s only fair for us to ask that question. Everyone else will.
You can’t blow off the bombing by saying that it was really cool that Fisk got beaten up there, or that this truck bomb didn’t hit it’s target (as if it really ever had a chance to do that, anyway). No, it’s not a major crisis and it does’t mean we have “lost” but it is not a good commercial for the GWOT that something like this can happen in a country that we nominally control.
Personally, I am skeptical that there was no intelligence flaw, and an attack like this does underline the poor intelligence capability (at least) of the Afghan government.
This is not a killer app like the GG’s and Andrews are making it but it isn’t nothing either. It is at least slightly embarrasing to the US.
— So, do we bomb Waziristan unilaterally or with Musharraf’s permission?
steve,
We’ll never be able to prove otherwise–but I am firmly in the camp of “this was a coincidence.”
And MJ in no way engages in wishful thinking. Terrorist bombings were, are, and always will be the work of losers.
Was it P.J. O’Rourke who said: “Losers suicide bomb. Winners have air forces.”?
Steve —
Your calculus simply means that until we reach a state of the absence of all violence, we will not have reached a state of “security.”
This bucks about a gazillion years of productive living.
Naw, see Major John cannot hold forth because Chimpy McHitlerburton is his boss. And he is probably ignert and had no choice but to sign up. Only the elite progressive thinkers can speak truth to power here. Afganistan is obviouly an abysmal failure.
Now why don’t ya’ll go on home and think about reducing your carbon footprint, instead of hating the brown people.
Besides, it’s all going to be solved in a Thunderdome deathmatch inside the mile high dirt berms.
TWO MEN ENTER. ONE MAN LEAVES!
Because of teh crazy, and the scotch.
Tell that to the Algerians. There’s a long history of bombings, going back at least to Haymarket. They invariably draw attention to the people who do the bombings, and the people they claim to represent, as well as the grievances of those are claimed to be represented by such bombings. It helped the labor movement in the US, the labor movement in Europe, the revolutionary movement in Russia, the partisans in WW2, the Zionists in Palestine, and on and on. It’s a disgusting tactic, but people use it, because it works.
I said wishful thinking because clearly there was some order of security breakdown. I mean, do you think the US should just go “aw,shucks” to the president of Afghanistan when our VP is attacked? I would imagine that the Afghan prez is deeply embarrassed by this, both personally and politically.
I also said wishful thinking because I think there was an intelligence breakdown. But, if the investigation proves otherwise, I will accept that judgment.
Well, yeah, sure.
Thing is, we can say that here, in the comments section of one of the 4E9 blogs in the world, and possibly even Major John could. But immediately something like that appeared in an above-the-fold post somewhere, or in one of Jeff’s commentaries, the lefties and trolls would immediately begin shouting in unison, “See, you’re finally understanding! Vietnamloserquagmirebushitlerburtonlosing! Surrender Now!”
It’s frustrating. It would be useful to analyze the things that go wrong, because the analysis would be useful the next time something like that happens. But we can’t do that, because immediately we note that something went wrong, up pops alphie or one of his clones to derail the thread with the argument that if anything went wrong then everything went wrong and Surrender Now! is the only possible remaining option.
Regards,
Ric
Yes, productive living in places like New York City, Philadelphia, or say, Osh Kosh today; and even any old city in the south you care to mention in the mid-19th century.
But still, let us set up an impossible circumstance to define success—because we need to implement the “slow bleed” as soon as possible.
Murtha sez so!
Jesus, Steve. You simply cannot stop this kind of thing from happening 100% of the time. The only thing you can do is show how ineffectual it is: if they were indeed targeting Cheney, they got nowhere close. The bomber succeeded only in killing those around the entrance—who are not military targets.
Died. For. Nothing.
Don’t even dignify it by saying it’s a minor embarrassment. It ain’t. It’s proof that security was sound.
We, in no way, know that to be the case. Unless you put your trust in Taliban press releases.
All the examples you cite are complex historical processes that were in no way singularly determined by the use of terror. Nice try.
Steve,
In all seriousness, I appreciate your thoughts. You usually post some contrary, or at least thought provoking comments here, and I don’t think anyone here considers you to be in the same class as deliberately ignorant bomb-throwers like alphie. I was not “blowing off” the bombing by talking about Fisk’s beat-down. I was in a flippant mood when I wrote that earlier, and it was probably wrong to do so. I would never willingly wish for harm to come to anyone I disagree with, even someone as distasteful as Fisk.
That said, I find it particularly ironic that someone like him is so typical of today’s Left. Someone who writes how much he empathizes with the very people who beat him for the very flagrant action of being a Westerner, and in subsequent years goes on to write things so blatantly and outrageously biased in favor of terrorist thugs like Hizballah. Of course his latest outrage was written earlier this week in the Indy, where he does his best Lord Haw Haw/Tokyo Rose imitation, basically taunting the British in Afghanistan that they will be massacred just like they were in 1880. And, in all fairness to Tokyo Rose, I find her to be far more sympathetic.
As for Maj. John’s post, I agree with him. I was in Iraq and saw enough innocent people blown up at checkpoints just waiting to carry on their daily work that I really don’t have much positive feeling regarding the military prowess of those who actually detonated the devices. Anyway, just my two cents.
No you won’t, because you made it up out of whole cloth. There is nothing aside from the AQ claims, that even remotely supports this as an attempt on the VP. In fact, the details and timing would indicate it was happenstance.
Well, this goes back to the argument about security in Iraq, if you know what I mean. I am not expecting perfect non-violence anywhere. I am saying it’s a minor embarrassment, that’s all. To follow your strong horse/weak horse analogy, we should retaliate in Afghanistan against the people who did this. I think that’s simple. I mean you can’t just dismiss something that at least “looks like” an attack on the VP of the USA. I mean, I think we agree on that. Otherwise we end up looking like fugitives in a country we liberated and ostensibly have in hand.
Another thing about the weak/strong parallel is that obviously we could pacify Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever, as a nation, if we wanted to. But I think we are over-extended in terms of both men and materiel to do that properly. Let’s face it, we’re asking 1/2 of 1% of our population to show our strength overseas. I want those troop and materiel increases yesterday. Then we could stop fighting on one hoof.
I appreciate everyone’s rejoinders and all I can say is that I don’t think the event was politically good for the administration. I will stick with that assessment for now.
As for:
I did not say that the complex historical processes I was referencing were singularly determined by terror. But terror played a role; not just the events but the consciousness and debate of those events. Anyway, while I am skeptical of the GWOT in its full argument, I think we can all agree that the Arab/Muslim world is in the midst of a complex historical process in which, like it or not, the US has a responsibility to play an important, if not necessarily bellicose, role.
We are not over extended, Steve. We are under committed. And that is the result of partisan politics.
Sorry, Steve. Ain’t gonna happen.
What you’re calling for is a crush/rebuild cycle a lá Germany and Japan in WWII. You aren’t the first, and you won’t be the last, to call for that—but it’s not going to be repeated for another generation, at least, if at all.
The size of the Army is irrelevant. You simply have no idea of the level of revulsion my father’s generation felt over the things that they had to do then. Oh, they knew they had to do them, and they didn’t “feel guilty” about it (although that’s the root of a good chunk of American pacifism), but things like firebombing Tokyo and Dresden… well, there may have been a few people who considered such things desirable of themselves (cf. Curtis LeMay, perhaps) but the vast majority looked at the ruins and said, Never Again.
So they started immediately after the war re-casting doctrine, training, and equipment purchases toward another way of doing it. Korea was fought with WWII techniques, mostly, because the new stuff wasn’t in place, and things like the mass attacks just confirmed the thinkers’ prejudices. The result was precision weapons, air power, the whole list of things that we take for granted as “the American way of doing things” but which would have Napoleon, or Clausewitz, dropping their jaws in sheer boggle that anybody would have the audacity to consider them possible.
Just as an example: People keep accusing Americans of “carpet bombing”. Rubbish. If we gathered all the airplanes we have into one big squadron and loaded all the bombs they could carry on them, we wouldn’t have enough stuff to repeat Dresden. Our doctrine, and the TO&E that derives from it, simply doesn’t allow the possibility. We’ve even done away with the idea of small nukes for field use; nuclear weapons are city killers for MAD, and nothing else.
Our military establishment, from the “A” ring to the lowest grunt, is based on post-WWII thinking, which has done its best to eliminate General Destruction from the chain of command. If we drafted every man Jack in the United States between 18 and 34, including all the women, homosexuals, and undecideds, we wouldn’t be able to do what you want so long as current doctrine stays in place—and remember that it took a full generation to get it fully in place; it would take at least that long to dismantle it and replace it with something else.
So “smash ‘em flat and send in George Marshall” is just as much a daydream as anything you cite. It ain’t gonna happen. We ain’t got the horses, and the breeding program’s been canceled since 1961. Suggest something else.
Regards,
Ric
Usually when I get in discussions with people about the use of force their solution involves using our technological edge, i.e., bombing the crap out of someone. However, my concern is that we lack the number of ground forces we need in order to really sustain the kinds of operations we need to be doing. I have been saying this for years, but, I find that lefty types object, and rightwing types object too (much to my consternation) on the lines that “we have enough troops.” And then, from time to time, I am accused of bad faith by people who say that “of course” we can’t get the country on a war footing, and “of course” we can’t “grow the military” that fast and “of course” we can’t draft, say, a million or more troops for the duration (like they did in WW2.)
I mean there are various levels of seriousness with which one can approach either any of these wars on their own or in toto (GWOT). I make it clear now that I will support any presidential candidate who is willing to make this a NATIONAL war. On the other hand, if we are going to continue doing what we do with what we’ve got, then I go back to my assessment that we have to be much more prudent with our resources, which, as constituted, are not inexhaustible.
Amen Robin, Amen.
Steve is correct too, in that:
And that same partisanship you highlight, may prevent us from doing so to our/their great detriment. Though, on a positive note, the Dems are starting to get too scared to follow the nutroots, so we may pull out a win for the people in Iraq and Afghanistan yet.
I wish I didn’t have to say “may” because success is crucial to our ability to avoid death on our streets (other than the usual death in the cities mentioned earlier), but “may” it is—if only the Dems realized we will not be able to unring that “suicide bomber on our mainland streets” bell, once rung.
TW: century14, phew, the willies.
Ric: Nice response.
I am not calling for ineffectual bombing strikes or flattening Kabul type bombings. That is exactly what I do not want to do.
I do think the size of our ground forces as present is way too small. I stand by that. If we were able to sustain a force establishment a million stronger than now during the Cold War, we should be able to at least match that.
But consider. We’ve been over the math, and Petraeus’ count (20 per 1 K) comes out to 500 K for Iraq, similar to Shinseki. If we had mustered—one way or another—500 K troops for Iraq in 2003, don’t you think the situation would be different there now? I mean, ethnic differences and all.
Ditto Afghanistan. Ditto Tora Bora.
I note Jeff has linked to the NYT, which has a relevant article picking up most of the dynamic all of us have been chewing on today. One para:
Hmm. I didn’t understand that earlier.
Steve,
A few points before I stagger off to bed:
It is not a contradiction to say the bad guys knew someone was at Bagram, but not that it was the VP. We got rocketed a day after some nameless UnderSec of the Army came by because “the blue plane” had landed. Do you think the HIG or Talib were desperate to get that propaganda victory of shooting rockets at the base where the ASD (AL&T) was for a conference with our two star commander?
Your perception of security at BAF is off as well. No matter where we put a gate, checkpoint, barrier – the Afghans will set up a whole slew of shops, stalls, parking areas, etc., just a bit further out. I might suggest you take a look at Google Earth – BAF is NNE of Kabul, maybe 40 km – can’t miss it. E-mail me (check my site profile) and I can give you the coords. The image is a little old, but very representative of the layout. If someone wants to kill themselves, and some innocents – they will. There are always a handful of soldiers around too. Eventually we will expand to the borders of the old post – then if someone does something in Bagram Village proper – we’ll still get the blame.
Jeff – I sent Insty the link this morning – so I appreciate you weighing in, as you can see that my e-mail sort of didn’t make it. Heh.
There were military targets in the area, Jeff.
Coalition soldiers died in the bomb blast.
It think what’s clear is that by engaging the insurgents, the U.S. military is providing them with the best training possible.
Far better training than we’re providing to the Afghan and Iraqi armies.
Quite a problem.
Is that the only sense in which you’ll judge the event?
And, really, is that even a valid sense in which to judge it? Innocent people were murdered, and you’re thinking about it in terms of the politics?
That, I think, is why terrorism can be an effective tactic. Some people will focus on it as a way to drive home their political points on completely unrelated matters. That’s why we heard caterwauling about the failure to ratify Kyoto as the “cause” of 9/11—and why it’s been blamed on American support for Israel and on our cultural and moral license. When people stop focusing on the real cause—the animals who want to murder random people to make a political point—and instead focus on using those murders for their own political points, then the will to fight the animals disappears and is replaced with a desire to use the violence for their own ends.
Thed pres and the Dems decidedbefore we even went to war, that we had lost.
Fuck them. I am at least as mad at those whiney little eight year olds as Major John is.
AAAARRRRRGH!!!!!!
The goal of terrorist insurgencies, after all, is to create (sic) horrific spectacle, then hope that the spectacle is overdetermined by those who, for whatever their reasons, wish us to give up the fight. Sadly, there seems to be no shortage of such folk with access to media credentials.
I recall noting that you admitted, via a bogus article, that withdrawing was the best course. Back up from that. Please, jeffy
Funny, alpo, but when civilians die in US attacks on a military target, you get all bent out of shape. When a couple of soldiers die in the midst of a crowd of civilians murdered by the jihadis, you praise the “effectiveness” of the attack.
Wow.
In case any one missed it, alphie is just flinging pooh. Not because he has a point, but to get attention.
He doesn’t care what anyone has to say, as long as a few comments start with:
Alphie, blah, blah, blah.
restrain yourselves gentlemen, and you will wound him deeply.
That’s true enough, steve……but it’s true largely because certain people are overblowing the strategic impact of this event.
Terrorists attacks are strategic in the sense that they make news and influence people’s thinking.
Like, say, yours. This, in spite of the opinions of people who have personally witnessed suicide bombers (not I, please note) who offer an alternate perspective that you can’t seem accept as valid.
Just food for thought.
Major Thanks, Major John. If I can’t find it, I will email you. CJD: I caught your point and I stress I was not directing my comment about Fisk at anyone in particular.
Michelle —
I have no idea what you are talking about. As I suspect you don’t either, I won’t spend much time trying to get inside your head—where I imagine unicorns are at this very moment goring the lifeless body of Richard Perle.
Oh—and as an internationalist teacher of internationalist English, you should be aware that it is not required that an article be placed in front of “horrific”. Thus, no need for [sic].
No. It would not have made, in the memorable phrase, a dime’s worth of difference—even in modern money, where a dime won’t buy a phone call.
You don’t understand. It’s not a matter of bodies. It’s a matter of doctrine—call it philosophy. The philosophy, the doctrine, used at present prevents that from being a possibility.
Let’s be clear: you think that having four times as many boots on the ground would mean that we could lock the place down—prevent the terrorists from moving around, stop the transport of IED materials, in general provide security, right?
Nope. Because the other thing about the United States since WWII is that it is not imperialist, and what you’re talking about is a purely imperialist activity. Take over. Run the place (and do it right!). We didn’t, and don’t, have the doctrine, the training, or the materiél to do that—and having more of the wrong troops (for the purpose you envision) is far more likely to result in their tripping over one another’s shoelaces than anything valuable.
It wouldn’t work, anyway. I wish Muslihoon were still around—anybody know where she went? I proposed, once, that one flaw (from our point of view) in the Arab character is a tendency to dependence, and Muslihoon (who should know) agreed. If we had provided perfect security, we would own the place—not because we wanted it or intended to take possession, but because the Arabs would lie down, let us manage the place, and snipe from the sidelines occasionally. It would be ours by default, and that, my friend, is the real “quagmire” possibility. We would never be able to leave, because the Arabs would never build the necessary institutions so long as somebody else was willing to do things for them. It’s the way they were able to semi-cope with all those centuries of tyrants, a survival reflex that would kick in automatically.
In fact, my only qualm about the “surge” is precisely that. Iraqi and American troops are actively pursuing the troublemakers, and the troublemakers are going to ground; that’s a good thing, but if the Iraqis don’t participate—if they just smile and keep on truckin’, and when Sadr comes back they lie down for him as they did for us—if that’s how it works out, it’ll have been useless, or worse. And if we do too much, if we give them the idea that we’re going to pacify the place without requiring their help, that’s exactly what will happen.
The only difference is that you think the “surge” should have been the tactic from the beginning. If it had been, we’d be worse off than we are now—stuck with managing Iraq ourselves, forever. Without ever having met either of them, I will tell you flatly that it never once occurred to George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld that that might be a good way to do it, because it ain’t.
Regards,
Ric
Jeff_S, Rob:
Okay, this is what I am doing. Jeff has a nice site where the news of the day is served up for discussion (not always by Jeff). My interpretation of the news is my own. I bring it here, largely because I would rather hang with conservatives who disagree with me than liberals who disagree with me, since liberals tend to be less tolerant of dissent. (Smoke that, GG.)
Objectively, acts of terror usually work on the “strategic” level Jeff describes. One can minimize the strategic effect, but not make it disappear. I mean, sooner or later people have to say, Why are these bombings happening? and What do we do to stop them? Proposed solutions, going even back to anarchist bombings 120 years ago, usually involve a lot of rage but also eventually a measured approach to the—I’m sorry, I’m gonna say it—“conditions” and “root causes” that make these events happen in the first place. Those may be interdictive solutions such as killing the people who plan bombings, or building barriers, or monitoring potentially explosive materials either in terms of chemical purchases or checking your shampoo at the airport.
But invariably, palliative solutions are also involved, and, indeed, that’s a major premise in the GWOT, that we can effect palliatives on the conditions that gives rise to terror.
I think it’s an utterly gross tactic (terror), but it gets attention. We can try to ignore it (by not making a big deal out of it, cf the New York Times), but we should at least be able to talk about it.
With regard to major violence involving Americans and/or places we are deployed, naturally any spectacle of violence is not good for us. I’m just pointing that out, motivated by my perception hereabouts of the tendency to dismiss the incident. If some hypothetical lefty is going to take that as “proof” of something or other, that’s his problem.
WRT Jeff_S’s comment, sure, if someone thinks that terrorist bombings are nothing, then I respect that view. I say again I don’t think this was a huge deal (although the casualties are troubling, maybe because when I first heard the story it was 2 or 3, a couple hours later, 23). But it’s something.
Nor do I think it’s symbolic of defeat or what have you. But part of discussing the news is determining how it will play, and this cannot play well. It should play small, but it could play large. Probably small. But of course it will be taken as yet more “evidence” for whatever some partisan wants to make of it. That’s the nature of news.
lee,
My point is that something has gone horribly wrong in Afghanistan in Iraq.
Anyone who denies it is engaging in intellectual dishonesty of the worst sort.
My guess is that the problem is similar to the new super-viruses that are immune to anti-biotics (a problem that may soon eclipse all others).
By engaging the insurgents directly, the U.S. military has toughened them to a level far beyond a level that the local troops we’re training the normal way can cope with.
The insurgents might even be better trained than the U.S. military now.
How many U.S. troops could survive a fight against the U.S. military?
None, I think.
If Al Gore had been President, that Taliban guy would’ve attacked the base… with rose petals.
… and he would have thrown them from an electric car!
Ric: First you say that sending 500 K wouldn’t have made a dime’s worth of difference, then you say that 500 K troops would have made a difference, but that we wouldn’t be able to leave. I mean, it can be one, or the other, but not both.
My main beef with the invasion before we did it was that by overthrowing Saddam we would be deliberately de-stabilizing a country which we would then by default have to control. And we didn’t have the people to do that. We didn’t have enough to control it then (the lootings, the borders, etc. etc.), so I doubt that we have enough to control it now. But that lack of security only serves to further radicalize the country, and incidentally wreck the infrastructure necessary to rebuild.
You seem to be saying that if we had had 500 K there (clearly, we COULD have, cf Shinseki and Petraeus’ counterinsurgency doctrine) we could have controlled the country, but we would never be able to leave. You are implying that we can leave soon?!
I mean, if you are correct then it would appear to follow that there is going to be some violent internal power struggle (aka Civil War) for Iraq to resolve itself, and it’s better for that to happen with the US having a lighter rather than a heavier footprint. So, let it happen.
As far as I’m aware, viruses have always, in general, been immune to antiobiotics.
So, you know: quagmire!
I keep waiting for a clown version of Rod Serling to appear.
I bet alphie secretly wants to dress as an insurgent for Halloweeen.
Only he’d add a cape and utility belt. Artistic license and all…
You are about to enter a dimension of stupidity heretofore unknown on this little rock we call Earth…
Your are about to enter…
The Dimwit Zone!
When he does, he’ll try to spin the attack in question is actually proof that the administration’s plan for Afghanistan is working just great!
“It is said that, while a virus is impervious to antibiotics, a trained insurgent becomes resistant than his master, and thus, a situation of stasis ensues, only marginally exacerbated by some simple truths: that the United States Army could not survive an attack by the United States Army, that a woodchuck if capable of woodchucking would only be able to chuck a hypothetical quantity of wood, and that the holders of such conceits are born every minute … in the Twilight Zone.”
Y’know, alphie, that’s the most sensible thing I’ve ever seen you post.
And it’s still full of shit. You’re stuck in the Mooreonic Convergence, and it’s turning your brain to mush. More dilithium crystals, Mr. Scott! We’ve got to break free of this!
Both of the postulates your “guess” is based on are wrong. The assholes who blow things up today are not the same assholes who blew things up last week—they’re new assholes, because the assholes who blew things up last week are dead. They aren’t getting toughened. They’re getting all soft and mushy, in fact. And the U.S. Army is not a static organization. It takes a while to turn it, but it does turn, and the tactics being used today are not the tactics that were used last year. What we’re teaching the Iraqis is only secondarily tactics, and in fact as the IA and IS spin up they’re teaching us what works and what doesn’t. What we’re teaching them is the flexibility that underlies our doctrine, and that’s what they’re learning.
The only reason we keep getting mad bombers is that they keep recruiting new ones—they have to, because the originals start to stink. And the reason they are able to recruit new ones is twofold: first, we’ve been extremely reluctant on political grounds to attack their safe havens and supporters, and second, you and your allies keep telling them that all they have to do is hold on a bit longer to win big. The Army and George Bush aren’t recruiting for al Qaeda. You are.
Why aren’t we attacking the safe havens? It differs by which one you’re talking about.
Musharraf is actually trying to play it straight, and up to now we’ve been doing our very best to keep a low profile and let him get on with it as best he can, because (as I’ve said before) there is no trace of imperialism in our strategy. We don’t want to run Pakistan; we want Pakistanis to run Pakistan in a way that makes sense. Dollars to donuts the primary purpose of Cheney’s visit was some variant of “shape up or ship out”, though. If that be hegemonism, tough shit.
Syria stays out of our sights because the Israelis want it that way, and we take Israel’s advice as a rule unless it’s clearly, obviously wrong. I urge you to read Michael Totten, who has uncovered some stuff I never imagined. Apparently it’s some variant of “the Devil we know…” that makes the Israelis want Assad kept in place. It isn’t clear at all to me why that’s so, but I’m still looking around. If anybody has recommendations I’d be glad to see them.
Iran—alphie, if there’s anybody in the Administration who actually thinks attacking Iran is a good idea, he or she is being sat on most effectively. Yeah, they’re the ones causing most of the problems, but if we were allowed to do what was intended in the first place we’d have a neat counter to that. Iraq and Iran are old rivals/enemies, and are of different (and mutually suspicious) ethnicities as well; the original plan was to play on that, and build a strong Iraq to counterbalance the mullahs. Unfortunately you and the Mooreons have rendered that strategy completely ineffective by telling the Shia that the West totally supports the Sunni. With you guys knocking yourselves out to celebrate the heroism of the Sunni mad bombers, the Shia don’t see any way to trust us, and they look to their co-religionists for aid. The result is that eventually we’re gonna wind up shooting Iranians, and that’s not something George Bush ever intended or wanted. It may be that there’s some SF going on in the background, but if so it’s going to take a while at best—too long to keep the bombs from dropping. Pity. It was a good plan, and it’s infuriating to have (what is nominally) your own side torpedoing it. Congratulations on the bloodbath, alphie; you earned every drop.
Regards,
Ric
Steve, I think Ric is simply trying to make a point about how doctorine or philisophy (which is something that our present military has been developing for decades- it isn’t something that shift much if at all from administration to administration; Rumsfeld was a profound element of change to a number of ingrained philosophical principals, which some believe is the reason it was so easy to find generals unhappy with him) affects what we can and will do in a military campaign. The US military, as it was composed and organized at the time of the invasion, really didn’t do post-conflict stabilization. It just didn’t. Clinton used the military primarily as a non-warfighting force throughout the ‘90s, but money and planning continued to focus on war-fighting operations. I’d recommend Thomas Barnett’s The Pentagon’s New Map– it’s a good primer on this kind of subject and a very fun read.
Right- still drunk.
I can believe that, and I also do understand that the reason we didn’t send 500 K troops to Iraq is because we really didn’t have them available.
However, I don’t think one can dismiss the NEED for post-conflict stabilization. Obviously, it was needed, we lost track of stability as soon as Baghdad fell and haven’t got it back. And we won’t be leaving without at least a figleaf of stability.
If I follow your and Ric’s arguments, then I can only conclude that the invasion should have been deferred until serious post-conflict measures—both conceptually, and materially—were available.
I know Alphie tries to stay on the cutting edge of leftie memes, but does anybody else here think he suffers from premature expostulation?
Let’s not kid ourselves, Ric.
Saudi Arabia supplies the most support for the insurgents and terrorists of the Middle East.
For a few obvious reasons, we look the other way and accuse other, less generous countries of causing all the trouble.
And so it goes.
I understand that rubbing peanut butter on the head diminishes that.
Indeed. Again- that’s why I’d recommend Barnett’s book. One of the primary focus points of the book is the need to develope such a system- and Barnett’s ideas have a lot going for them. His rough draft of such a system involves both military reorganizations and international diplomatic processes to try and build something of an IMF for post-conflict countries. I think there’s also plenty to criticize, but I’m really off to bed soon. I swear.
No, Steve, there’s no contradiction. I just haven’t broken through the roadblock in your mind that pictures all American soldiers as Sgt. Rock.
If we had deployed half a million troops in the beginning with the same doctrine and TO&E that the ones who actually went used, we would be exactly where we are now except that casualties would be higher because there’d be more targets of opportunity for IEDs.
If we had (in some notional parallel Universe where we had them) deployed half a million troops trained and equipped for imperialism—for lockdown and control — and used them as they were trained, we would be stuck in the quagmire of owning a country and having to manage it instead of letting the inhabitants do it. That didn’t happen and couldn’t have happened, because we ain’t got the horses.
BTW don’t take the estimates of Generals too seriously. Generals are managers, and they’re like any manager—when they ask for resources, they always ask for more than they expect to need because they always expect that the bean-counters will cut back the appropriation by some random percentage. If a General tells you he needs half a million troops, he probably thinks he could get by with a third of that but is building in a safety factor. They don’t expect to get a half-million troops; I would hazard that the “safety factor” is between two and four, but Major John probably has more insight.
Regards,
Ric
Welcome to Michael Moore’s Foreign Policy for the Tiny Brained.
Get a new act, alphie–trying to be smart just isn’t your thing.
How about chia pet farming?
Used golf ball hawking?
HuffPo commentor?
steve, you do ask good questions that require a certain amount of thinking. I admire that, especially since the usual “discourse” from the left is on the order of what little “a” offers.
But I have to point out that logical reasoning (not emotive reactions, which you do not indulge in) starts with basic premises. These premises, in turn, are usually “flavored” by our values and experiences, especially with deductive logic, which requires an intuitive leap from “A” to “J” to the conclusioin.
I point this out because, in order to answer your two questions, I have to look at your premises. I may be off (who said logic always gives the right answer). Your note that:
Those are not really palliative solutions. Sometimes the treatment for a disease is to relieve the symptoms, keep the person nourished and warm, and let the body’s natural immune system carry the load, possibly with suitable anti-biotics. Cholera was once treated in this fashion (still might be).
If we use a disease analogy for terrorism (carefully, since argument by analogy can only go so far), then GWOT attempts to treat the “disease” (terrorism) by “relieving the symptoms” (reducing poverty, improving security [in both senses of the word], educating people, medical relief, provide economic aid, etc). These “treatments” give the “body” (Afghanistan, Iraq) a chance to heal.
So these are not “palliative solutions”; not being medically inclined, I suppose that might include providing morphine to a terminal cancer patient. Not a cure, just relieves the pain.
Enough analogy, now a question: do you consider the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq as hopeless? That all we are doing is “administering morphine” (with American blood and money) there? That seems to be your basic premise, on the order of “Is the glass half full, or half empty?”
If not “hopeless”, then what is your assessment of the situation?
Think about that for a moment, please. Back to your basic questions:
1. Why are these bombings happening?
“One over the world” answer: Terrorists use terrorism to inflict their will on a superior opponent. They want to destroy the will to fight; that is the ultimate goal of any strategic campaign. Attain that goal, and the enemy crumples, regardless of their advantages. You don’t need to destroy the enemy’s will for victory, but it makes the final butcher’s bill a lot lower. As terrorism is effectively at a disadvantage when opposing seasoned military forces with sound doctrine, they must strike at the enemy’s will. That enemy being us, in this case.
More to the point: The bombings happen because they make news. 18 kids were butchered on a soccer field by a bomb in Ramadi, and it hits the news. Failed bombing attempts seldom make the news, yet those happen routinely.
(That’s not necessarily an MSM liberal bias, BTW; the media has long held the “If it bleeds, it leads” mentality. Good news doesn’t sell, God knows why.)
The terrorists know this; setting off a major car bomb in a relatively quiet country like Afghanistan (ask Major John) is news that will lead. People see this, wonder why we can’t stop it, and then conclude that our efforts are ineffective. Since this is cumulative, people see nothing but failure, completely ignoring the successes (again, ask Major John, although I am somewhat familiar with them, through field reports).
The bombs are going off to make the news lead, and thus to sap our will. Simple but effective.
2. What do we do to stop them?
Here is where I question another premise of yours: What makes you think that we can stop them? Rather, why don’t you ask, “What can the Afghans/Iraqis do to stop them?”
Ric Locke asked this same question in a different fashion. And I’ll rephrase it yet again:
Why do you assume that the United States is capable of stopping individuals determined to conduct a suicide attack? Do you expect the US to have absolute control over Afghanistan and Iraq to prevent them?
Hell, do you want us to have that kind of control? I don’t! Assuming that we could even do it in the first place; as Ric noted, we are not an imperialist nation (in spite of what Chavez and his cohorts say).
As a case in point….we can’t exert enough control over our own country to stop drug traffic. People will not accept the draconian measures necessary to do that.
And yet we are supposed to stop suicide bombings in countries where many Americans want our troops to withdraw from?
I’m not specifically looking at you, steve, but I must say that the mind boggles at the discontinuity in thinking here. It’s a common enough mistake.
What we can do, what we are doing, is helping those people rebuild their own countries…..which ultimately, only they can do. Pax Americana is not an empire. It’s an attitude.
In the words of an old song, we are trying to “give peace a chance” by giving the Iraqis and Afghans the opprotunity to heal, rebuild, and improve their “immune system”, which is much more than the military. It’s an attitude about taking charge of their lives.
Will this work? The best odds I’ve heard so far has been 50-50. But the only real alternative is to withdraw, and let the terrorists have a free hand.
Given the choice between “maybe” and “failure”, I’ll take “maybe” any day. It’s a poor menu, but it’s better than no menu at all.
Ric: I don’t think of soldiers as being like Sgt Rock. I don’t think that’s part of the picture at all.
I forecasted before the invasion that our troops were not suited for occupation or police work, but that begs the question as to why they have been doing just that for nigh on four years.
I referenced a couple of weeks ago a Carlisle Institute study, and I agree, assuming—and this is a big if—that all combat arms in the Army and Marines had been deployed as MP and had requisite crowd control, etc. along with the nominal MP’s, we’d still only have about 150 K available, the rest in supporting roles. (Even now of course of the 150 K we have there, only a fraction are suitable for ground ops or what have you.)
I mean, you are making powerful arguments either that the initial invasion was a mistake or that our current activity is a mistake. If we ain’t got the horses, either conceptually, or materially (and I agree about the latter) then, either we shouldn’t have invaded, or, after invading, we should have just let them go after each other.
On the other hand, I think it’s too far to suggest that Shinseki’s estimate can be knocked down by a factor of 2 to 4. Especially since Petraeus, whose counter-insurgency doctrine appears to fill the conceptual gap you decry, requires the same amount of manpower. Unless part of the doctrine is also to overstate manpower requirements by a factor of 2 to 4 ….
The laissez-faire approach to postwar Iraq that you envision Cheney and Bush working out ahead of time, which made a virtue out of not enough troops and no postwar planning, has not been particularly successful.
In the end, we still have the same dilemma: one version, where we invade with too few troops and no post-war doctrine and are still there for the foreseeable future, and another version where we have enough troops and a post-war doctrine and are there forever. In terms of right now, however, they are the same. That does not follow.
alphie, as usual you miss the point and wind up with the shaft.
Saudi Arabia isn’t a “country” in the Westphalian sense, like France or Denmark. It’s a family estate, and the family is huge, sprawling, and rich. You need to spend some time drinking with cops in the Domestic Affairs division to understand what the phrase “one big happy family” really means.
ibn Saud got power because the Hussein who was running the place pissed the Brits off. But British support wasn’t enough, especially after the Brits left; they needed the support of the Bedouin tribes, and they bought that support by paying off the imams (Sunni don’t have “mullahs”) who indirectly controlled the tribes. The result of that, so far as it impacts the war in Iraq, was that the family split—the majority of it is highly Westernized, but there’s a sizeable minority that longs for the Good Old Days of caravan-raiding and general hatefulness. That branch of the family is just as rich as the rest are, though, and they have to be allowed for in the management of the estate. They’ve got plenty of cash—on the Scrooge McDuck level, in fact—and they’re the ones sending money and support to jihadists. “Saudi Arabia” isn’t supporting anybody, because to a close first approximation there’s no such entity.
The complication is that they still have to pay off the imams. They do that in a way that minimizes their impact at home—by sending them overseas to teach; Waha’abbist remittance men. The problem would be fairly easily manageable on our end if it weren’t for the cries of “Islamophobia!” from the moral relativists. They don’t have a real chance against the temptations of the West and know it, thus the continual calls for permission to form enclaves in which they rule the roost. If we were allowed to bring the kind of pressure for assimilation that every other immigrant group has been subjected to, the problem would go away in short order. It’ll go away eventually anyway, but moral relativism is dragging it out ‘way past its sell-by date.
As for the problem originating in SA itself, that, too, has been made harder. Time was when the President of the United States could invite Prince Bandar over for the weekend, chat a bit, and pose for the photo op, following which a telegram would go back to Riyadh and the pressure would ease for a while. Now that the Left has cut off that access, it takes much longer. The Saud family is remarkably opaque to outsiders—I doubt there’s anyone outside the Kingdom who knows who they all are—but to the extent that anything is visible from here, it would appear that the main branch of the family is starting to lose patience with the reactionaries. It’s often said that if we attack Iran, people who don’t support the mullahs would get behind them in national solidarity. Attacking SA would be much worse—it isn’t a country, it’s a family, and I guarantee they’d stick together in the crunch. We could all wish for a time machine so’s we could shoot Lawrence before he screwed the system up by getting on the outs with the Husseins, but lacking that our only option is patience and such pressure as we can bring to bear.
Regards,
Ric
Nice post, JeffS, but in addition to your excellent analysis and I add the following (and I don’t lump steve into this camp, but it needs saying):
There are adolescent-like sneers and Alfred E. Neuman shrugs offered in the anti-Bush camp when discussion occurs of the immediate and long-term consequences of failure.
Correct. Virii are treated with “antivirals”. Although, they can exhibit resistance as well.
Alphie is more of a Prion I’d guess. lack of effective treatment supercedes resistance.
Jeff_S: That’s a big long post and it’s late but I will try to answer your comments and queries albeit succinctly.
#1 You’re right, in a medical sense palliative means painkillers, and I wasn’t thinking of that. I was thinking palliative in terms of “relieving” as in “relieving the conditions that give rise to terrorism” but I probably should have used some other word.
No. I am concerned about (1) the amount of American blood and treasure being expended there, (2) I think there is a disconnect in the political unity and sense of purpose that has been developed among the American people and what will ultimately be a decades long transformation in the region, (3) I don’t think that this transformation is something that we can manage as much as we think we can, and (4) I don’t think military solutions are the only solutions available, but (5) if we are going to use the military option we have to be committed, as a nation, to what that will cost, and no “3 months and out” or “pay for it with oil revenue” schemes, please.
The two questions I posed about terrorism are not questions I don’t have my own answers to (not terribly different from yours.) I was trying to refer to the inevitable effect of terror, in drawing attention to circumstances that have to change.
I am not “expecting” any particular outcome in either Iraq or Afghanistan. I expect they will be fine, in 50 to 100 years. My concern, as an American, and a veteran, is the continual drip drip drip of casualties, and the various black eyes (Abu Ghraib, etc.) that we have gotten from the GWOT. I am also beginning to be concerned about the polarizing effect that the war is having domestically which could lead to a withdrawal that will be perceived as a defeat.
If bombings are an index of in-security, and at the same time, we aren’t leaving until the situation is secure, then it follows that our leaving either Iraq or Afghanistan depends on the competence of theoretically autonomous governments (and, apparently as of this date, incompetent governments). I don’t think we should make that kind of deferral. On the one hand, you say we should hold them accountable for their own security, on the other hand, we are there because they can’t. I just got this week’s Newsweek in the mail. Cover: some young woman with no legs. This is very disquieting. This can’t go on forever.
From All Things Conservitive, May 10th 2006, the Brookings Institute Iraqi Index:
Now that’s just infuriating. What makes you think they didn’t have a plan?
Kerry had a plan. Murtha’s got a plan, and Pelosi. God help us, alphie’s got a plan. But dammit, a plan is just that—intentions based on what you know now. The chance that you are going to know everything that you need to know to make your plan (spit!) work is not just zero, it’s negative—no matter how detailed your intelligence or how masterful your plan, I can guarandamnedtee you that you missed something important. The problem is exponentially worse if you have an opponent. Your opponent is working very hard to disrupt your plan—that’s what opponents do.
The one thing, the big thing, that everybody from George Bush to Robert Fisk missed, the mistake from which the entire situation at present flows, was underestimating the degree to which Iraqi civil society had been trashed by Saddam and the Ba’ath. Fisk, if you’ll recall, was promising a bloodbath, with a thousand Americans dead every day. That didn’t happen. George Bush —
Consider the looting. If we or anybody else were to invade, say, Germany, there wouldn’t be much looting. Not only would the population feel it has a stake in museums, etc., that it wanted to preserve against the invaders, there would be German cops on the streets keeping it to a dull roar, so as to maintain a cohesive resistance for later if nothing else. None of that happened in Iraq—the cops bugged out and hid, and the populace, disenchanted and disenfranchised, went to grab any of Saddam’s stuff they could. Not their stuff, mind you—not Iraq’s stuff, of which a share was theirs—but Saddam’s stuff, which was now unguarded and free for the taking. Nobody anticipated that—not Fisk, not Cole, not Galloway, and most certainly not George Bush.
And that is where the trouble lies. What we need to “win” in Iraq is a cohesive Iraqi society that regards Iraq as a mutual possession, even if they hate one another and squabble about shares. We don’t have that. If we were permitted to run a decent propaganda campaign we could probably at least start to build one, but apparently that’s not permissible—at least, as soon as one starts getting established the entire might of the world Press and Left musters to smash it.
The whole reason for the emphasis on training the Army and Security forces is an attempt to get around the prohibition of propaganda. The Army knows very well how to build a cohesive force out of Californians, Texans, and New Yorkers who would be at one another’s throats (or girl friends, followed by throats) otherwise. What they’re trying to do is build a cohesive Iraqi army, in the hope that they will then go home and remember serving with the guy from Ramadi and the one from Irbil and rubbing along fairly well. It appears to be working, if slowly, and if we aren’t permitted psychological warfare it’s probably the best we can do.
Regards,
Ric
There seem to be a lot of America-centric thinking on the right.
I don’t think the insurgents really care what “public opinion” in the United States is.
There were few opinion polls around when they were booting the British and Russians out of their country.
Maybe another problem is we’re treating this like a P.R. campaign while the bad guys are playing for keeps.
The suicide bombers are just one small part of their campaign. Undermining our puppet governments, dissuading locals from helping those governments and gaining support of the locals through their successes and intimidation are their main goals.
That’s not to say they won’t bother to score a few easy p.r. points when something like 5D Dick staggering past one of their operations at the right (or wrong) time presents itself to them.
Ric, your civics lesson on Saudi Arabia offered up no answers, just a lazy swipe at the imiginary “left.”
What’s to be done?
Hunh. Who said I was offering solutions, alphie?
You and your like-minded naysayers have spent the last going-on-four years smashing things, on the ground that any positive outcome might redound to the credit of George W. Bush, and that is absolutely positively forbidden. I’m simply taking a page from your book. I have no positive recommendations, certainly none that you’d even consider accepting, so there’s no point in offering any. I’m simply pointing out that the brain-dead “solutions” you are offering are guaranteed to make things worse, not better, and storing up bile to laugh raucously as you slog through the quagmire. Gonna be fun watching the stunned expression on your faces as New York slumps into a pool of radioactive lava, and you come to the Awful Realization that all your theories about Why They Hate Us are not even applicable enough to style them “full of shit”. Enjoy. I expect to.
Regards,
Ric
That’s not quite what I said. We are there they aren’t capable of handling their own security right now. GWOT allows them the chance to grasp that capability, and take charge of their own countries. Not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination, as a number of commenters here have noted.
Getting them to the point where they are so capable is going to take time. Bush made that clear fairly early on, but it took a while for the reality of that fact to sink in. Your own (understandable) reaction is an example of that. What we are seeing here is a collective wavering of the will of American. A wavering, sadly, lead by the Democratic leadership in Congress.
And, yes, we are discussing a long committment to this effort. I think we’ll be in Iraq and Afghanistan at least as long as we were in Europe. Not at the same force levels, mind you, but a significant American military presence none the less.
And it’s this long term committment that’s causing the wavering. If there’s one thing Americans really suck at, it’s looking at the longterm.
steve, I’m a veteran as well. I have friends and family in the military, and serving as DoD civilians. So we are similar in that regards. My perspective is simple:
1. “Black eyes” like Abu Gharib are transitive in nature. Even if the incident was severe (Abu Gharib was not, but the recent conviction of US troops for rape and murder most certainly IS), we have the institutions to deal with them, learn from them, and move on. We’ll heal if we don’t pick at the scab.
2. Casualties (dead AND wounded) are regrettable in any sense. Yet should the fear of casualties drive our decision making? Is not the better question to ask is, “What are our troops dying and bleeding for? Is it worth it?”
And thus we come back to the “maybe” versus “failure”. IMHO, our troops are getting killed and wounded to buy time. Time for the Iraqis and Afghans to gain that capability, and perhaps provide a bit more stability in the Middle East, surely a desired goal. Time to rebuild their nations so that they have a chance of succeeding.
If our brave men and women did not step up for this sacrifice, we would have no chance whatsoever of that “maybe”.
So I don’t see the casualties as a drip-drip-drip; I see them as a down payment on giving peace a chance. This is above and beyond the secondary argument that our current KIA rate is only a little higher than the average military death rate in peace time. WOunded, of course, are far higher.
3. The polarizing of America…..sorry, steve, but I believe that this is not strictly due to the war. I think it can be argued that this polarization (more like factionalism, methinks) has been creeping into American for a long time, since at least the Vietnam War. The current war has merely accelerated this factionalism in America; the only real cure (if there is one) that I can see for this is conclusive proof that one side or the other got it right.
And maybe not even then.
In any case, the polarization/factionalism is there, and we somehow have to get them working together again. That’s a tall order, and I really don’t see another Vietnam-style failure as helping any. I know that you aren’t looking for one, but many Americans embrace the idea. So I prefer to march ahead with the current effort, and work for the “maybe”.
Oh no, of course not. That’s why they issue videos and communiques that contain the left’s talking points.
I think we’re on the Dimwit Zone Tower of Terror now, folks.
What Ric gave you there, alfi, was as lapidary an analysis of the reality of Saudi politics as you will read in your lifetime.
And you have the presumption to call it ‘a lazy swipe’.
Your arrogance is sometimes beyond belief. Just try reading and comprehending some of the information so thoughtfully laid out for you and it is possible you may learn something.
All this, and a return appearance by famed internationalist interactor Michelle. My cup runneth over.
Ah, it ain’t even that. It’s poo flinging from behind a shield of maximum density. Contrarianism in it’s purest form. Nothing more, nothing less.
There is no comprehension, no understanding, no rationality, no reasoning, no value, no virtue, no nothing. Just the poo, and the desire for a reaction.
I recommend that we all take care not to get any on us. It stinks and it wastes your time.
Those are all PR campaigns, you fucking moron.
I think it may be time for a Fun Facts about alphie:
alphie has his name written backward on his jammies, so when he looks in the mirror in the morning he can read who he is.
Ric, If/when I deploy again, I am considering buying two Iridium phones. One I would hold onto, the other I would send to you. When I would attend a divisonal staff meeting, I would simply plug the phone into a speaker and say “Ric, hit it.” That summary of the Saudi (the country is named for the family fer cryin’ out loud!) situation was brilliant.
Jeff_S, Wow, you sure you are an engineer type? If there is an opening at the divison G-5 or G-9 spots…well, think about it, OK? Heh.
Did Tyler Durden join the Army?
Thanks for the kind words, Major, but even if I manage to find a job soon and am therefore able to keep my Internet connection open, the rest of the folks would find out and you would lose face. I have no credentials and no credibility. I have no degree, I don’t speak or read Arabic, and I have never been “east of Suez.”
It’s odd, and in some ways scary. Since 1991 we here in the US have been hearing and seeing bits and scraps about the Middle East, and every time something’s presented it isn’t as if I was hearing it for the first time—facts slot into place as if I’d known that before and had simply forgotten. I have been posting these little diatribes in various places around the Net since I’ve been on, a little over ten years, and the comments I get from the people who live, work, and/or were born there tell me that I usually get most of it right. What’s the mechanism?
I’ve learned to trust it well enough to produce these essays, but at heart I class it somewhere between divining and Ouija boards—I don’t trust it for anything really substantive, and neither should you. Check, dammit. The Internet gives anybody connected to it the ability to check up on assertions with almost no pain. You could look it up, and you should no matter how plausible it may be. There are too many incidents in the world, from kids tripping to battalion-sized actions, for anybody to keep up with everything, but when assertions are made there’s no excuse anymore for taking anybody’s word for it—mine, the Press’s, or any politician’s. You could look it up, and you damned well ought to.
Regards,
Ric
Kudos to ric, MJ, steve, Jeff S and others for an informative and (with one glaring exception) reasoned discussion of this topic. Sometimes the blogoshere can be a beacon of informed debate and mutual understanding.
I’d like to add two quick points (after which I’m going to be doing a whole bunch of cutting and pasting and saving comments.)
1) In addition to ric’s excellent review of the Saudi Family empire I would add the obvious for those (monkeyboy, Timmah previously) that invasion of Saudi Arabia is impossible because of the Hijaz, the holy lands. There is nothing on earth that would unite disparate elements of Islam quicker and with more fervor than American boots anywhere near Mecca or Medinah. Bin Laden’s evil genius was in using his 1998 fatwa to call for the defense of the Holy Lands as justification for world wide terror against the West in general and America in particular. The British understood this and stayed out. The US will continue to apply pressure to the Sauds to rein in their reactionaries and cut the legs off of the financing by seizing assets and shutting down the charity system that funds the Madrassas. It’s not ideal but it has reaped some benefits.
2) As I had previously commented, the focus of attention will be on the Waziristan province of Pakistan rather than Iran. If there is compelling evidence that Pakistan’s “surrender” in that province has allowed safe havens to be established for al Qaeda and the Taliban then some kind of action is almost certainly close. Those safe havens provide the opportunity for al Qaeda to rebuild its command and control and, assuming that travel to and from is reasonably unhindered, re establish their foreign covert training and store the bio or radiological agents that they so desperately desire for large, devastating attacks on the West. We simply can’t allow those havens to exist.
Also check out Maggie’s link to Bill Roggio for the history.
Thanks again, all. I often feel that I’m a student in a master’s class with many of you and thank Jeff not only for his own, formidable skills but also for the quality of commentator who chooses to spend his time here.
More importantly, we can carefully explain to Musharraf that continuing a “hands off” approach to Waziristan is ceding sovereignty over that territory. You cannot hand governance of a region to another power, allow it to attack another country from what’s nominally your territory, and still declare that territory is yours.
RC;
Bingo! I’m sure that this bit of nuanced thinking will be lost on Gigi and the Huff-Poo’s (didn’t Motown sign them in the ‘60’s?) when the bombs start dropping. We will all be ducking the screems of UNILATERALISM! and COWBOY DIPLOMACY! like glowing globules of a hot steel explosion.
I can hardly wait…
Jeff:
I’ve got a title for your next book: An Army of Cronkites.
I would like to reiterate what BJ said. This has been an excellent thread. I’ve stayed out not because i don’t have an opinion, but because others have said it better than I could.
It is now time to go back to work and to let most of the comments percolate in my mind.
N.B.: a-bot. steve is an example of the type of commenter you should aspire to be. He thinks and it shows.
Ah, crap. I check my email this morning, and find that one of the people killed outside of Bagram was a Lockheed support person. Not someone I knew, or even knew of, but sad nonetheless.
Thank you for the kind words, Major John, but it’s amazing how much people interaction you have to consider when developing a project. Plus, I did do time as an S2 (in the 33rd Infantry Brigade, in fact, plus in a battalion here in Washington). A few things do rub off in the process.
And, alas, I retired last summer, after 27 years time in service, so I’ll have to forego the pleasure of G5 or G9 duty in the future. :-(
Auf Englisch, bitte, for the rest of us.
Alphie,
In the name of All That Does Not Suck, what on Earth is:
supposed to mean?
BRD
I think the mistake many of you are making is that you think alphie is endeavoring to make sense, or is even interested in making sense.
Guys:
alphie/Neville/monkeyboy is only interested in flinging poo in all varieties, screeching, running away, and then picking nits out of his own fir while giggling at the rightieous thugs’ attempts to ponder and comment on his inanity.
When he’s not designing missile shields …
Rather than Action Boy I would choose Action Chimp as his personal handle.
If you meant that for me, sorry, Slartibartfast. If you didn’t mean it for me, sorry again…..
I’m a recently retired Army reservist, Engineer branch. Major John complimented me by noting that I could fill other key general staff positions (the “G” in G5 and G9 means you work for a general officer) that deal with nation building and diplomatic relations.
G5, IIRC, is “civil-military operations”, what Major John did in The Stan. This is the military’s means of applying military resources to the problems facing civilians in a given area of operations. It’s quite sucessful.
G9, again IIRC, is host nation support, where the military deals with the civilian leadership of the country they are in. This tends to be a two-way relationship, although not always. But it is a direct conduit from the commander to the civilian government.
The 33rd Infantry Brigade was a unit in the Illinois Army National Guard, long ago. I used to work in the tactical intelligence section (the “S2″) at the Brigade HQ, lo, these many years ago, which required a certain amount of tactical and strategic study on my part. That’s where I picked up most of my basics in regards to strategic and tactical operations. Shaping the battlefield is more than emplacing obstacles; there’s a need to understand your own people, not just the enemy.
Also, Major John is in the ILARNG now, and I just wanted to point that we have a few things in common.
Although I am curious, Major John…..is the turret at the Kedzie Armory still in use as a club? That was the neatest place to spend an evening after an Armory drill, all that memoribilia from the days of the 33rd Infantry Division, especially with the older troops telling stories.
Thanks for the interpretation, JeffS, and now I understand why you tend to write in shorthand about such things.
Bitte schöne, Slart. But it’s “jargon”, not “shorthand”. It’s the military’s own technospeak, and it can drive people nuts!
Loads of fun in the right circumstances…….
Yeah, I get some of that, but I only see the part where military and defense contractor meet.
And I see as little of that as I can get away with. I hear some guy or outfit referred to as PMA251, and my eyes start to glaze over.
I’m a DoD civilian employee myself, and the folks who work with me are much of the same mind.
Like I said, loads of fun under the right circumstances….
Plus I have secondary duties as a translator. Without any pay bonus, mores the pity.
Yeah, both countries seem to be infested with hatefilled Islamic suicide zealots who have been duped into thinking they’re getting virgins on the other side, when all they’re generally doing is killing innocents and wasting their lives to the delight of the Mullahs, who, despite being pretty much the only ones with any hope of gaining anything from the venture, haven’t seen fit to lace up the ACME® TNT-vests themselves.
Oh, yeah, something’s gone wrong, all right, and it ain’t just in Iraq and Afghanistan. Somebody should do something, eh?
BTW, if we are going to go down the road of mano-a-mano combat between ObL and Bush, could it be done with fighter aircraft? Bush gets to use the USAF jets of his choice, and ObL gets to use any fighters AQ has floating about – or will have to hijack a commercial airliner.
Not a club anymore – it is a large conference room/VTC room. In fact, I will be spending a large amount of time in it starting this Friday night and the rest of the weekend…believe it or not they upgraded the HVAC and are trying to get us better phones, computer lines, etc. Oh, and we moved the memoribilia to the second floor, by the commnad offices. 33rd INF and (my early time there in the) 33rd ASG stuff too.
The old neighborhood has undergone an upgrade, as yuppiedom marches down North Avenue. Where there used to be a liquor store with bulletproof glass, there is now a fitness studio. No more drunks, druggies and hookers stumbling around that part of Humboldt Park – now it is kids soccer games, push cart vendors selling flavored ices and roast corn to familes and the teams of middle aged men playing softball and soccer.
The cops still park next to the armory to sleep off the last 20-30 minutes of their shift before heading back north to the station.
Roesser’s is not only still going strong, they are expanding. There is even a McDonalds a block and a half west of the armory!
BTW – G5 is plans, G9 is Civil Affairs. I thought your skillz would be best used in either spot….
But how would Bush know how to fly it with his draft dodging illegal-drug using evil evil evil ass?!!!
BECAUSE OF TEH FLIGHT SCHOOL!?@@?@?
OK, I’ve been out of the below Army level ops too long, even before I retired. I had no division time, and at CFLCC in Kuwait, C5 (C = Coalition) was CMO, C9 was Host Nation Affairs. And, once upon a time, G5 = S5 = CMO. Sheesh! I’m embarrased about that.
But I’m still flattered; G5 Plans (C35 in CFLCC) would be cool. Thank you. And I did look at going Civil Affairs, way back when, but I couldn’t find a slot (this was pre-9/11, and CA was still ramping up).
God, that’s an improvement! We used to try and guess which were the female hookers, and which were the transvestites. The park was a dump, and we simply didn’t go there, even in the daytime. And no one went outside after dark.
It’s also good to hear the history was saved from the turret; it’ll make a good conference room, but that memoribilia was very interesting. And I hope they remodeled the building while upgrading the utilities; used to be that STARC’s policy was to let that armory fall apart around our ears, which was a shame, that being one fine building; even the gratings were artwork. It was built at a time when the Guard was not only important to the national defense, but an integral part of society.
Alas, no more club! I guess the state finally found out that we had a primo wet bar up there; I used to suck on an MGD while listening to COL Tzach (I probably misspelled his name, it’s been a long time) and other old timers tell war stories. The brigade commander (BG Haynes) was adamant that it remain in place, even when STARC put out their strict no-alcohol policy for all armories.
Good times! Even with all the problems that we had.
Ummmm, a day late and wrong thread, BRD.
But, hey, imitation being sincere flattery, and all that, thanks.
Steve,
I agree with you in the sense that they score PR points with these attacks.
Because it actually hurt us or because the media will blow the significance out of proportion?
Its not hard to find negative information in a war zone. Its also not that hard to find positive information in a war zone…but you would not know it by the media reports.
Can alphie say something so stupid that even alphie can’t understand it?
I guess he can.
john;
Please do not stare at the pulsating purplish/pink light that is the Action Chimpâ„¢.
Lest I fear for your sanity…
He goes by many names…