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

[meni0n]

Puck, a guy off his sig op ql3s told me they set the date for 2010.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

So according to what I have read, you train the Afghan soldier, march him to the gate, shake his hand and say "good luck". then turn around and say "next?"

Maybe we can take over duties in Bamyan? From what I hear it the place needs a lot of help, from the development side and would be easier to protect than Kandahar with the limited size of forces we will be able to deploy.

 

[X-mo-1979]

So according to what I have read, you train the Afghan soldier, march him to the gate, shake his hand and say "good luck". then turn around and say "next?"

Maybe we can take over duties in Bamyan? From what I hear it the place needs a lot of help, from the development side and would be easier to protect than Kandahar with the limited size of forces we will be able to deploy.

Maybe we can fly them to Canada and train them here.Put them back on the plane and wish them luck.

 

[PuckChaser]

I believe NATO would be screwed if we completely left Kandahar and went to reconstruct another province. We've built so many bridges being the only boots on the ground for years, tribal elders would be wary to trust another country's CIMIC groups.

Yes, our troops are strained, but we're only ending the combat role because people at home can't stomach any sort of body count. Maybe they think IEDs are only triggered by the weight of a combat soldier/vehicle, but not a reconstruction/peacekeeper vehicle.

 

[Kirkhill]

I wonder how you guys and the Canadian Government of the Day would react to adopting the practices common in Oman in the 60s and 70s.  Officers and Sr NCOs from UK forces "resigned" from HM forces and went to work for the Sultan.  After a period with the SOAF they then returned to HM service and resumed their careers.  Sort of an "unofficial" secondment sanctioned by HMG.

 

[X-mo-1979]

I believe NATO would be screwed if we completely left Kandahar and went to reconstruct another province. We've built so many bridges being the only boots on the ground for years, tribal elders would be wary to trust another country's CIMIC groups.

Yes, our troops are strained, but we're only ending the combat role because people at home can't stomach any sort of body count. Maybe they think IEDs are only triggered by the weight of a combat soldier/vehicle, but not a reconstruction/peacekeeper vehicle.

Really?I seem to remember a major part of our contribution to Afghanistan only encounter with Afgani people were at the market at Kandahar airfield.
We hold a very small piece of ground,with very few combat troops on the ground.However while I agree Canadian troops have done good in the area,our hauling out of a relatively small number of troops is not gonna leave a huge vacuum.

We always joked about Sparta "I AM CANADA!!!". ;D

 

[PuckChaser]

I wonder how you guys and the Canadian Government of the Day would react to adopting the practices common in Oman in the 60s and 70s.  Officers and Sr NCOs from UK forces "resigned" from HM forces and went to work for the Sultan.  After a period with the SOAF they then returned to HM service and resumed their careers.  Sort of an "unofficial" secondment sanctioned by HMG.

We'd get sold out for 10,000 Afghani and your head minus body would be on Al-Jazera. Its a nice idea, but the price would never be right, and the security climate is far more volatile.

 

[vonGarvin]

Yes, our troops are strained, but we're only ending the combat role because people at home can't stomach any sort of body count.

Don't kid yourself (not so much you, but anyone who reads this thread).  ANY military role in Kandahar would be against the parliament's wishes. I do acknowledge that the PM need not consult ANYONE to deploy troops; however, the government has said in public that it would seek parliamentary approval if it wished to amend the current government position.

 

[MarkOttawa]

One reason to be there, Torch post:

"Afghan Star": CBC Newsworld, Monday Oct. 12, 10 pm ET/PT
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/10/afghan-star-cbc-newsworld-monday-oct-12.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

The Afghan elections and counterinsurgency--according to this view, severe problems with the one by no means negates the possible success of the other (contrary to many nay-sayers):

Counterintuitive counterinsurgency
An illegitimate election in Afghanistan does not mean legitimate American military and political goals can't be met.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-fontaine12-2009oct12,0,4934815.story

As the Obama administration debates whether to stick with the counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan,
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/10/mcchrstals-afstan-options-and-obamas-al.html
opponents point to that nation's flawed presidential election as a reason why this approach cannot work. Counterinsurgency is premised, they argue, on the presence of a legitimate national government that can win allegiance from local populations. Given credible allegations of rampant abuse in Afghanistan's August election, President Hamid Karzai's newly illegitimate government cannot play this role. As a result, the United States has little choice but to change strategies.

This argument is badly flawed. Electoral fraud will render our task in Afghanistan more difficult, but it does not make counterinsurgency impossible. On the contrary, a counterinsurgency approach -- and not a narrowly tailored mission focused solely on killing or capturing enemies -- remains the best path to success in Afghanistan.

To understand why, consider the analogous case of Iraq over the last three years. In January 2007, the "surge" of combat forces began as part of a new counterinsurgency strategy that emphasized clearing areas of fighters, holding that territory and building the infrastructure and institutions that had been so badly lacking -- just as Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal has proposed for Afghanistan...

...With U.S. forces clearing and holding territory and demonstrating to the Sunnis that they had a reasonable alternative to Al Qaeda and its sectarian warfare, the extremists were sidelined. Security began to improve, and the political space necessary for reconciliation began to open.

Prospects for such an outcome in Afghanistan actually look better now than they did in Iraq in early 2007...

This is not to say that a stolen presidential election is meaningless.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8302288.stm
But our main goal should be helping the Afghan government work at the local level -- providing the marginal but tangible improvements in security, governance and prosperity that ordinary Afghans say they want, and stopping the corruption and abuses they personally contend with and resent.

Ironically, the greatest effect of Afghanistan's botched election may be felt outside the country -- reinforcing doubts in the United States and Europe about whether a corrupt Afghan government really deserves our help. But this misses the point. We are in Afghanistan because its takeover by the Taliban would be catastrophic for American national interests. The Taliban seeks to achieve that goal by exploiting any gaps it can find between the government and the people. Our task is to see clearly the causes for these gaps and take the steps necessary to close them.

This is precisely what McChrystal spent upward of 60 pages explaining in his recent assessment.
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/09/comisafs-initial-assessment-commander.html
The counterinsurgency strategy he describes -- difficult and costly though it may be -- remains the best possible path to preventing the return of Afghanistan to a Taliban-dominated terrorist sanctuary.

Richard Fontaine was a foreign policy advisor to John McCain during his presidential campaign and in the Senate. John Nagl was part of the team that produced Petraeus' counterinsurgency manual. Nagl is president
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/authors/john-nagl/bio/
and Fontaine is a senior fellow of the Center for New American Security.
http://www.cnas.org/

Meanwhile, Fareed Zakaria
http://www.fareedzakaria.com/
seems to be advocating continuing a mix of counterinsurgency and counter-terrorist strategy, with no significant US troop increase:

What Failure in Afghanistan?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/11/AR2009101101552.html

Update: As for the McChrystal approach in action:

Advancing Marines test new Afghan war doctrine
http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5984ZI20091012

BARCHA, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Winning ground is one thing. Convincing Afghan villagers you will not leave, abandoning them to a vengeful Taliban, is a bigger challenge for U.S. Marines advancing deep into southern Helmand province.

The Marines, part of a 10,000-strong force sent to Afghanistan this year, have pushed south into hostile terrain, winning ground and pledging to build the long-term trust and security needed to prevent insurgents from returning...

The conclusion of an earlier Torch post:
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/09/whats-obama-to-do-about-afstan-and-what.html

...
Should President Obama turn down any substantial increase in forces, what's a poor Afghan to conclude? The top US military man in country say more forces are needed or mission failure is possible. The president disagrees. What faith is that Afghan to have that the Taliban won't be back sooner or later? Which horse may he lay side bets on, at a minimum? The PR impact of the US decision-making stinks from an Afghan standpoint--even if those forces are sent, it certainly looks like this administration's commitment is increasingly grudging. Not a happy longer-term prospect for those Afghans unless the ANSF really do get built up and really effective pretty soon.

Ending the CF's "combat operations" at Kandahar
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/10/canadians-to-train-but-not-mentor.html
(the governmen's latest policy dance step)
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/10/afstan-post-2011-no-military-mission-or.html
won't be great for Afghan morale in any case.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Excerpts from a post by BruceR at Flit:

Today's essential Afghan reading
http://www.snappingturtle.net/flit/archives/2009_10_12.html#006556

Hands down, Tom Ricks' description of the battle of COP Keating.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/10/the_battle_of_cop_keating_an_earwitness_account

It was tempting at first to write this off as the latest in what looked like an annual attempt to overrun an American outpost in Nuristan (Ranch House, 2007, Wanat, 2008, now this), but this one is actually more troubling than those others...

The complete rout of the ANSF in location is unfortunate, but expected. We need to be absolutely clear: there is nothing, nothing we have created or will be able to field in any corner of the Afghan army in the next two years, or even longer, that could have withstood an attack as determined as this on their own.

The only hope for Afghan military leadership if a foe of this quality remains at the end of our time in country (assuming that were any time soon) would be to adopt tactics and operational doctrine significantly different from what we've been teaching them, because these tactics will demonstrably lead to their deaths in large numbers, and/or to hope that in the absence of Western troops, the enemy wouldn't be quite as determined as this crowd clearly was to seek their annihilation...

Read the whole piece. More on co-location with the ANA at the Update here
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/10/obamas-got-mccrystals-afghan-numbers.html
(though the above battle is not a happy example).

Mark
Ottawa

 

[The Bread Guy]

...from The Independent:

Speaking during an official visit to London, Gen-Leslie said: "We are delighted to have British troops serve alongside us and we would be very happy if more are sent. But it is obviously up to the British Government to decide what they want to do."

The commander said that following losses inflicted by the Taliban, "we took a long, hard look at what needed to be done and I think we are now the best equipped of all Nato troops in Afghanistan".

The Canadian force is due to pull out in 2011. However, Gen-Leslie told The Independent that after spending £3bn on new equipment including armour and helicopters, and an upsurge in recruiting, his force would be ready to continue with the mission if ordered to do so by the government in Ottawa.

And at least one reporter didn't do their homework:

The 3,000 Canadian troops, based in the Taliban heartland of Kandahar, have taken part in some of the fiercest fighting of the war, losing 137 personnel.

 

[MarkOttawa]

As for an Afghan quagmire--another view of the primaeval--in current "thinking"--one (usual copyright disclaimer, via Spotlight on Military News and International Affairs):
http://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/257-eng.html

The Real Afghan Lessons From Vietnam
The 'clear and hold' strategy of Gen. Creighton Abrams was working in South Vietnam. Then Congress pulled the plug on funding.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574463024150622310.html

...
In the later years, Abrams ["Gen. Creighton Abrams took command soon after the 1968 Tet Offensive"], along with Ellsworth Bunker (at the head of the embassy in Saigon) and William E. Colby (in charge of support for pacification) devised a more viable approach for conducting the war even as U.S. forces were being incrementally withdrawn.

Security for the South Vietnamese became the new measure of merit. Instead of "search and destroy," tactical operations were now focused on a "clear and hold" objective. Greatly increased South Vietnamese territorial forces, better trained and equipped and integrated into the regular army, provided the "hold."

Abrams, Bunker and Colby regarded South Vietnam's President Nguyen Van Thieu as his country's "No. 1 pacification officer." Against the advice of virtually all his advisers, Thieu took the courageous step of organizing and arming a People's Self-Defense Force to back up localized defense forces that defended their home provinces. Thieu's own view, validated by the results, was that "the government had to rest upon the support of the people, and it had little validity if it did not dare to arm them." Ultimately four million villagers were enrolled in the self-defense force.

Thieu also implemented a "Land to the Tiller" program which, for the first time, brought real land reform to the South Vietnamese peasantry. By 1972 over 400,000 farmers had acquired title to two and a half million acres of land. Tenancy was eliminated.

Better intelligence and a structured Phoenix program (as the campaign against the enemy infrastructure was called) progressively identified and neutralized the enemy's covert infrastructure. Most were either captured or induced to rally to the government side, providing valuable sources of intelligence for going after the rest.

By the time of the enemy's 1972 Easter Offensive virtually all U.S. ground troops had been withdrawn. Supported by American airpower and naval gunfire, South Vietnam's armed forces gallantly turned back an invasion from the North amounting to the equivalent of some 20 divisions, or about 200,000 troops.

Critics were quick to attribute the successful defense to American airpower. Abrams would have none of it. "The Vietnamese had to stand and fight," he said. If they hadn't done that, "ten times the [air] power we've got wouldn't have stopped them."

When the last U.S. forces departed South Vietnam in March 1973 pursuant to the Paris Peace Accords, South Vietnam had a viable government and military structure that was positioned—had the U.S. kept its commitments—to sustain itself against the renewed aggression from the North that began almost immediately after the peace accords were signed. When America defaulted on those commitments, South Vietnam was doomed.

Lessons learned from the past are only as good as our understanding of the past. This is especially important to keep in mind now, as the commander in chief, his principal national security advisers, and senior military leaders contemplate the next step in Afghanistan. Analogies to the real history of Vietnam could be as useful as those based on a flawed understanding of that conflict are dangerous and misleading.

Mr. Sorley, a military historian and retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, is the author of "A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam" (Harcourt, 1999).
http://www.amazon.ca/Better-War-Unexamined-Victories-Americas/dp/0156013096

And note there's no Taliban regular army with armour and artillery. Nor likely to be unless they take over Pakistan (or at least get the equipment--not that much of it yet--from defeated, defecting and demoralized units of the ANA if the international military support goes poof).

Mark
Ottawa

 

[GAP]

The trouble with history is it is written with rose colored glasses to highlight the good points the author wants to make. The Thieu government/army commanders/the whole infrastructure was rife with massive corruption. The US supported whole paper companies only to find out they were creative schemes by corrupt officers/politicians...

This take on the Viet Nam war is one of the most politically correct/don't slag anyone version I have read in a long time. If there is going to be any lessons learned that might be applicable to Afghanistan, is sure isn't going to be from this bunch of half-truths.....

 

[X-mo-1979]

How should we conduct the mission?
Ok I'll bite.real simple.Destroy all marajuana and hash and opium we find.Growing or processed.Use aircraft to napalm the fields at night.There is a very clear report out saying the Taliban are growing and have tons of money due to the drug trade.I'm not a general by no means,but this seems very cut and dry to me.We sleep in the COP's and FOB's surrounded by Opium poppies and weed fields...a few grapes thrown in for the munchies.Burn the money crops.WHY are we not denying them of that?
After having their field napalmed a few times they will smarten up and start growing vegetables to feed their families.

 

[The Bread Guy]

From today's Globe & Mail, by David Bercuson, shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

Afghanistan: You can't take politics out of war
If it had a majority, the Canadian government might change its position on withdrawing its combat troops

The struggle to prevent a Taliban takeover in Afghanistan goes on, as it must, whatever the latest strategy from the International Security Assistance Force headquarters in Kabul, or the Pentagon, because if it doesn't, the result may well be Taliban governments in both Kabul and Islamabad.

Such a result will, at the very least, significantly raise the prospect of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan and create a number of other very scary scenarios for the West. It will most assuredly embolden radical jihadism and significantly damage chances for a global rapprochement between Islam and the rest of us.

Why then is U.S. President Barack Obama hesitating about committing new troops to Afghanistan? Why has Canada apparently decided to leave the struggle while it is still in the balance? Why has Australia not agreed to replace the Dutch in Uruzgan province? The answer is simple: Everyone is playing politics with the war in Afghanistan.

Playing politics with wars is supposed to be a “bad” thing. We expect our political leaders to play politics with employment insurance, or tax concessions for donations to political parties, or how slowly or how quickly infrastructure money is flowing. We expect political parties to use public issues to gain a march over their opponents, as they have since parties first began to appear about 500 years ago.

But we are repelled by the very idea that political parties play politics with war, which, after all, involves killing lots of people and laying waste to vast areas. Surely war is far too serious – and its results far too solemn – to be played for political advantage.

No, it isn't.

In his oft-quoted tome On War, Prussian military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz declared that “war is not merely an act of policy, but a true political instrument,” or politics by other means.

Von Clausewitz has his detractors, but few of them disagree with his notion that politics essentially defines what war is. If collective violence is perpetrated solely for criminal gain – or because a city's team loses the Stanley Cup – that's not war. The Taliban may be religious extremists, but the danger they pose is that they wish to exercise that religious extremism through a political instrument – the state in Afghanistan, or Pakistan.

Thus, politics can't be taken out of war and, in the case of democracies, it shouldn't even be attempted.

Democracies at war, for example, are still democracies.

During the U.S. Civil War, the Union government suspended habeas corpus, leading to many excesses in repressing dissent, but Abraham Lincoln still had to face an election in 1864 and his chief opponent, General George B. McClellan, ran on a platform of ending the war. Winston Churchill had to face a vote of no confidence in the British House after the fall of Singapore in 1942. He won it. Prime minister Robert Borden and opposition leader Wilfrid Laurier fought an election over conscription in 1917. Borden won.

Since war is another form of politics, political leaders will do politics (and be accused of “playing” politics) because when a government wages war, it uses the lives and resources of its citizens and it will and ought to be politically responsible for the outcome, if not also morally and legally responsible.

Governments “playing politics” with war in the past has had mixed results. Prime minister Mackenzie King made no public commitment during the late 1930s that Canada would fight alongside Britain in the event of war, preserving national unity, and getting an almost unanimous declaration of war against Germany on Sept. 9, 1939. But his “no-commitment” policy virtually guaranteed that the Canadian military would not be ready when war came. Was military readiness more important to Canada in 1939 than national unity in the face of war? Canadian historians are still struggling with the question.

Given the strong opposition in Quebec to the war and the anti-war stance of the Bloc Québécois and the NDP, Stephen Harper's choices are no less difficult. As a minority prime minister, he courts a majority. To court a majority, he cannot fully support the war in Afghanistan however much he may wish to. Mr. Obama is in much the same position despite Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress because the Democrats are themselves split.

Political circumstances change, of course. As one wag declared, “In politics, a week is a long time.” Whatever either major party, Liberal or Conservative, may say now about Canadian combat troops in Afghanistan past 2011, they would probably say something very different the morning after winning a majority government – and there is almost no chance Canada won't have an election by the spring of 2011.

If the U.S. President truly commits to the war in Afghanistan, a majority government in Canada will stand beside him.

David Bercuson is director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Torch post, with the full video:

PBS Frontline: "Obama's War"/Globeite quagmiritis
http://toyoufromfailinghands.blogspot.com/2009/10/pbs-frontline-obamas-war-globeite.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

More British troops for Afstan announced--with maybes.  One wonders how strict Prime Minister Brown will be about the conditions; interesting stuff about the Americans:

UK sends 500 more to Afghanistan
Gordon Brown says the UK will send 500 more forces personnel to Afghanistan - but only if key conditions are met.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8305922.stm

They will be sent as long as they have the necessary equipment, if other Nato allies boost their troop numbers and more Afghan soldiers are trained.

There are currently about 9,000 UK personnel in Afghanistan. Some 221 have been killed there since 2001.

The US could next week announce it is sending up to 45,000 extra servicemen and women, the BBC's Newsnight reports.

The programme says the Obama administration has already told the UK government it will soon announce a substantial increase to its military forces in Afghanistan.

It understands an announcement could come next week, in time for a Nato defence ministers meeting in Bratislava, although there has been no official confirmation from Washington.

As well as the 9,000 UK personnel, there are 150 reserve troops in the country which the Ministry of Defence said would be available for further temporary deployments.

Military chiefs welcomed the UK troop reinforcement, insisting their requests had been fully met but opposition parties said more details about the timing of the deployment were needed...

Maybe this and a little bit more will be all Mr Brown needs (though Georgia is not, er, in NATO):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125547079455583357.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories

...
Georgia is planning to send a battalion of 1,000 troops to volatile Helmand province [emphasis added] in southern Afghanistan in the spring, while smaller nations like Macedonia plan to send a few dozen soldiers each. Still, the Afghan war is increasingly the province of the U.S. and a core group of allies, including England and Canada [well,...].

Separately, Japan said it will end its naval refueling mission in support of U.S.-led operations in Afghanistan in January...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[The Bread Guy]

...speaking to Global News Edmonton:

"We are very much planning to have the military mission end in 2011 .... The plan is to move to a civilian, development, humanitarian mission."  Harper said Canada has been increasing its civilian presence on the ground in Afghanistan and "that is very much the direction we are heading .... "Afghans take more responsibility for their own security."

Sigh....

 

[MarkOttawa]

Hurl.

Mark
Ottawa