Sic Semper Tyrannis

Hölderlin's Lyric "Love" ("Die Liebe)

 

Hölderlin's Asclepiad Stanza Lyric "Love" ("Die Liebe")

Translated by Steven Willett

 

Hölderlin's Dream

 

Note: This is one of Hölderlin's most popular poems. It has been set to music and song several times. It is also extremely difficult to translate his German, whose syntax is highly concentrated through the meter, the metaphors and the imperatives. I have taken a very few games with the accentual meter, but only where Hölderlin does.

 

Love

 

If a friend you forget, if of your closest all,

O you grateful ones, those, poets you slander on,

   God forgive it, yet honor

      Only souls of the ones who love.

 

For it’s asked, where, lives far off human life

Since the slavish one, Care, now is coercing all?

   Therefore also our God roams

      Carefree over our heads too long.

 

Yet, as always the year’s cold and remains song-less

Through its designate time, but from a field all white

   Green leaf blades are still blooming,

      Often sings just a lonely bird,

 

When the forest expands, rivers bestir themselves,

Milder breezes at last blow from the distant South

   In their exquisite season,

      So, a sign of the better time

 

We believe in, awakes solely with modesty,

Solely noble, devout over the brazen hard

   Waste of ground yet untamed, Love,

      Single daughter of God alone.

 

Blessed be, O be, heavenly plants, for me

Cultivated with song, when the Aetherian

   nectars nourish your power,

      And creative fresh beams feed you.

 

Grow and forest become! more animated for

Fully blossoming world! Speech of the lovers now

   Be the speech of our whole land,

      Their soul be the chime of the people.

 

Die Liebe

 

Wenn ihr Freunde vergeßt, wenn ihr die Euern all,

   O ihr Dankbaren, sie, euere Dichter schmäht,

      Gott vergeb' es, doch ehret

         Nur die Seele der Liebenden.

 

Denn o saget, wo lebt menschliches Leben sonst,

   Da die knechtische jetzt alles, die Sorge, zwingt?

      Darum wandelt der Gott auch

         Sorglos über dem Haupt uns längst.

 

Doch, wie immer das Jahr kalt und gesanglos ist

   Zur beschiedenen Zeit, aber aus weißem Feld

      Grüne Halme doch sprossen,

         Oft ein einsamer Vogel singt,

 

Wenn sich mählich der Wald dehnet, der Strom sich regt,

   Schon die mildere Luft leise von Mittag weht

      Zur erlesenen Stunde,

         So ein Zeichen der schönern Zeit,

 

Die wir glauben, erwächst einziggenügsam noch,

   Einzig edel und fromm über dem ehernen,

      Wilden Boden die Liebe,

         Gottes Tochter, von ihm allein.

 

Sei gesegnet, o sei, himmlische Pflanze, mir

   Mit Gesange gepflegt, wenn des ätherischen

      Nektars Kräfte dich nähren,

         Und der schöpfrische Strahl dich reift.

 

Wachs und werde zum Wald! eine beseeltere,

   Vollentblühende Welt! Sprache der Liebenden

      Sei die Sprache des Landes,

         Ihre Seele der Laut des V

“Russia offered bounties to Afghan militants to kill US troops” - TTG

(CNN) - Russian intelligence officers for the military intelligence GRU recently offered money to Taliban militants in Afghanistan as rewards if they killed US or UK troops there, a European intelligence official told CNN.

The official was unclear as to the precise Russian motivation, but said the incentives had, in their assessment, led to coalition casualties. The official did not specify as to the date of the casualties, their number or nationality, or whether these were fatalities or injuries. "This callous approach by the GRU is startling and reprehensible. Their motivation is bewildering," the official said.

This story was first reported by the New York Times.

US intelligence concluded months ago that Russian military intelligence offered the bounties, amid peace talks, the New York Times reported Friday. Citing officials briefed on the matter, the Times reported that President Donald Trump was briefed on the intelligence findings and that the White House's National Security Council held a meeting about it in late March.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement Saturday that the President and Vice President Mike Pence were not briefed "on the alleged Russian bounty intelligence." McEnany said her statement "does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of the New York Times story," which said Trump had been briefed. McEnany did not deny the validity of the reported US intelligence that a Russian intelligence unit offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to carry out attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan  (CNN)

————

Russia denies the story in its entirety. That’s to be expected. The Washington Post, Wall sStreet Journal, CNN and Sky News back up the NYT reporting through their sources. The White House doesn’t deny the intelligence reporting, but denies Trump was in the loop. McEnany’s insistence that Trump is clueless about this is either a damning indictment of the Trump administration or a damned lie. Either way, it’s not good. At any rate, it does appear this is another serious leak of classified information within the White House. That’s also not good.

So was Trump kept in the dark by his NSC? Did he just refuse to believe the IC reporting? Or did he not know whether to shit or go blind? Did he decide to keep this out of the public eye and quietly confront Putin about this episode in the continuing shadow war. That would be a reasonable response. Totally unsatisfying to me, our military and most of the American public, but reasonable from a realpolitik point of view.

Russia’s alleged action is not near as heinous as it may sound. Remember, we supported and supplied the Mujahideen with weapons to kill Soviet soldiers while they were in the process of withdrawing from Afghanistan. It does show that Russia is not our friend and Putin is not Trump’s friend. It doesn’t mean we have to go to war with each other, but we should realize our relationship is not akin to a herd of glitter fartin’ unicorns prancing across the rainbow bridge. 

TTG

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/27/politics/russia-us-troops-afghanistan/index.html

A few thoughts - 24 April 2020

1.  IMO the US Navy will be doing a good thing if it persuades Trump to restore Captain Crozier to command of USS Theodore Roosevelt.  He did a very foolish thing by appealing to the whole wide world to support his position, but he did have the best interest of the ship's company in mind and as he said, we are not at war in the Pacific.   This would also be a humane decision on the part of the navy toward an officer in command, something unusual for them.

2.  IMO the medico bureaucrat academicians who insist that their group think about how to stop a pandemic are going to be discredited as it becomes clear that COVID-19 is wildly infectious but at the same time not very fatal except for the old, infirm and others compromised in health.  That would include HIV/AIDS sufferers.  You don't hear much about that, but IMO that is because such people are typically members of the LGBTQ "community" and therefore members of a protected group.  In pursuit of the power of policy dictation the doctor philosopher kings have contributed mightily to the near death of the greatest world economy in history (ours).  Let us hope the more sensible state governors can do enough to remedy this disaster to bring back some measure of prosperity.  I hope that Trump realizes that he does not have constitutional power over the governors.  As I have previously written he would have to declare states he targeted to be in rebellion or say that they had lost the power to govern themselves in order to have a claim to that sort of power.

3.  US foreign policy in the greater ME remains the shambles that Zionist and/or neocon infiltration of government and manipulation of election funding have made it.   There is little difference in responsibility  for this in the two major political parties.  As a result of Trump's continuation of the Israel inspired policy of meddling in the affairs of the Islamic culture continent the US now finds itself in a position in which policies of domination have caused us to have a thousand or so US military "hostages" scattered across NE Syria and all over Iraq where they are completely vulnerable to attack from Iran and its allies.  

4.  This potential hostage posture is a major inhibition to US freedom of action in the Gulf where Iranian aggressiveness is targeted toward a withdrawal of the US Navy from the Gulf.  IMO such a forced withdrawal caused by a minor power like Iran because we are afraid to fight would be a major milestone in the decline of America's power in the world.  Our enemies would rejoice.  IMO the navy can easily defeat any Iranian enemy but the hostage situation in Syria, and Iraq is a major impediment to naval action.  We should get out of those two countries. We should not have been there in the first place.   I am clearly on record about that from 2001 onward.  In the case of Afghanistan the hinge of fate swung in 2009 with Obama's disastrous decision to let the COIN generals persuade him to try to build a new and modern Afghanistan.  The resulting state has expenses for its security forces that are greater than its GDP.

5.  Some constitutional mechanism must be developed in the US for forcing the retirement from office of old people who are judged to be demented.  The ice cream interview comes to mind.  pl

 

"What We, the Taliban, Want" NY Times op-ed

"I am confident that, liberated from foreign domination and interference, we together will find a way to build an Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights, where the rights of women that are granted by Islam — from the right to education to the right to work — are protected, and where merit is the basis for equal opportunity.

We are also aware of concerns about the potential of Afghanistan being used by disruptive groups to threaten regional and world security. But these concerns are inflated: Reports about foreign groups in Afghanistan are politically motivated exaggerations by the warmongering players on all sides of the war.

It is not in the interest of any Afghan to allow such groups to hijack our country and turn it into a battleground. We have already suffered enough from foreign interventions. We will take all measures in partnership with other Afghans to make sure the new Afghanistan is a bastion of stability and that nobody feels threatened on our soil."  Haqqani

--------------------

IMO, the publication by the Times of this manifesto was probably a required element of the peace process.  It demonstrates a willingness to publicly subscribe to things the US would like to see in a fig leaf agreement that allows us to withdraw.

Well, pilgrims, we DO need to leave that sad country.  We have done as much damage as we could manage in almost 20 years.  No one should expect us to do more.

Afghanistan is still just a geographical expression with a seat in the UN, a monument to 19th Century Russian and British desire for a buffer zone between their two spheres of control.

All Right!  Accept the fig leaf and get the hell out!  pl

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/opinion/taliban-afghanistan-war-haqqani.html

"Trump Gives Conditional Go Ahead on Peace Deal With Taliban" NY Times

" More than 18 years after the United States invaded Afghanistan, President Trump has conditionally approved a peace deal with the Taliban that would withdraw the last American troops from the country, potentially beginning the end of America’s longest war, according to Afghan and American officials.

But the deal will only be signed if the Taliban prove their commitment to a durable reduction of violence over a test period of about seven days later this month. If the Taliban do end hostilities and a deal is signed, the United States would then begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops, and direct negotiations would start between the Taliban and Afghan leaders over the future of their country.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo informed Afghanistan’s top leaders in separate phone calls on Tuesday that Mr. Trump had given tentative approval to this approach, according to a senior Afghan official briefed on one of the calls."  NY Times

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I told'em so 11 years ago.  See linked IQ2 debate from 2009.

https://www.intelligencesquaredus.org/debates/america-cannot-and-will-not-succeed-afghanistanpakistan

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-peace-deal.html

pl

The Afghanistan Papers - TTG

“A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable.”

“The documents were generated by a federal project examining the root failures of the longest armed conflict in U.S. history. They include more than 2,000 pages of previously unpublished notes of interviews with people who played a direct role in the war, from generals and diplomats to aid workers and Afghan officials.”

“The U.S. government tried to shield the identities of the vast majority of those interviewed for the project and conceal nearly all of their remarks. The Post won release of the documents under the Freedom of Information Act after a three-year legal battle.”

“In the interviews, more than 400 insiders offered unrestrained criticism of what went wrong in Afghanistan and how the United States became mired in nearly two decades of warfare. With a bluntness rarely expressed in public, the interviews lay bare pent-up complaints, frustrations and confessions, along with second-guessing and backbiting.” (WaPo)

—————

Thus begins “The Afghanistan Papers: A secret history of the war,” a six part investigation put together by a team led by Craig Whitlock. Access to the first two parts and all the interview documents is available at the Washington Post without a paywall or article limitation. It took the Post three years and two lawsuits to get their hands on the interviews and records of the Congressional created Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). I found the scope of the deception and incompetence to be eye opening. Not unbelievable, just eye opening in its scope. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of coverage of this story outside of the WaPo series. It was lost in the waves of impeachment coverage.

I found the interview of Michael Flynn to be typical of the candid exasperation of those interviewed. By 2006 Flynn realized the war was useless. He said only a handful of US military and policy people could speak Dari or Pashto after years of war and that rosy assessments from operational commanders and policy people based on numbers and stats were produced at all levels. 

He’s right, except not everyone thought the war was useless by 2006. I was the Chief of our Afghan Task Force for a six month period that year. The detachment chiefs in country were still pretty optimistic, lured by the siren song of counterrorism. Of course we were expanding our presence back then. Maybe we did turn one of the never ending series of corners. But in a year or two, we would begin pulling back towards Bagram. After several years at war, we were still totally reliant on interpreters in both Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s shameful. There was a time when failure to operate in the host country and/or target country language would mean a quick trip back to become a lowly CONUS case officer. Assessments based on numbers and stats… welcome to PowerPoint nation. The Six Sigma mindset was rampant among our “management.” That gimmicky mindset is applicable to manufacturing widgets, not creating intelligence and foreign policy or fighting a war. No wonder we never had a clue in Afghanistan.

WHY WE PERSIST

The origin of the war was vengeance, pure and simple. Without the quick capture or killing of bin Laden, our vengeance was never fully satisfied. The eventual killing of bin Laden after waiting so many years didn’t satisfy our vengeance. It was too late. Our vengeance shriveled into boredom and indifference.

Since the generals and politicians couldn’t officially acknowledge that we went into Afghanistan seeking revenge, they offered a succession of reasons for being there from “fighting them there so we don’t have to fight them here” to fighting a full blown counterinsurgency and building a new Afghanistan and finally to bringing opportunity to young Afghan women. All these things we did in a half assed manner. We were never asked to pay the full price and make the WWII-like sacrifice to meet any of these goals so our boredom and indifference flourished.

THE FUTURE

Candidate Trump indicated very early on that he intended to withdraw from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, he soon succumbed to his advisors and generals advice of increasing troop strength in 2017 as part of a surge strategy. This makes him no better or worse than his two predecessors who succumbed to the same kind of advice.

However Trump has recently restarted negotiations with the Taliban and has renewed his pledged to remove several thousand troops. "We're going down to 8,600 [from the 12,000 and 13,000 US troops now there] and then we make a determination from there as to what happens," Trump told Fox last August. "We're bringing it down." Of course the drawdown will be seen by the neocons as a unilateral concession to the Taliban. That shouldn’t phase Trump. I think he plans to reannounce this withdrawal next month. DoD officials have said that the smaller US military presence will be largely focused on counterterrorism operations against groups like al Qaeda and IS, and that the military's ability to train and advise local Afghan forces will be reduced considerably. Sounds like they’re still looking for a reason to stay.

Trump can break the cycle. He holds no ideological conviction for staying in Afghanistan. If he could get over his BDS (Bezos derangement syndrome), he could seize this Washington Post series, or at least the SIGAR lessons learned reports, and trumpet them through his twitter feed and helicopter talks. I believe he alone can generate a public cry for getting the hell out of Afghanistan and carry through with that action no matter how much his generals scream about it. But without a loud public outcry, especially from his base, Trump has no incentive to break the cycle. So all you deplorables better start hootin’ and hollerin’. Hopefully enough SJWs will join you to pump up the volume.

TTG

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/

"Can the US win in Afghanistan?" IQ Squared Debate - 2009 (Republished 12/15/2019)

The Washington Post  has been publishing a series of articles based on "leaked" US government documents concerning a government investigation into our operations in and government lies about Afghanistan.

I participated in the linked debate at NYU in October 2009.  I think it is interesting to compare what was said then to the situation now.  My little talk is linked in the top row second from the left.   pl   

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=%22america+cannot+and+will+not+succeed+in+afghanistan%2fpakistan&qpvt=%22america+cannot+and+will+not+succeed+in+afghanistan%2fpakistan&view=detail&mid=7DAE3516F3FE932C26117DAE3516F3FE932C2611&FORM=VRDGAR

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/#nav 

"Detailed satellite photos show extent of ‘surgical’ attack damage to Saudi Aramco oil facilities" CNBC

"Satellite photos released by the U.S. government and DigitalGlobe reveal the surgical precision with which Saudi Aramco’s oil facilities were struck in attacks early Saturday.

The strikes, which unidentified U.S. officials have said involved at least 20 drones and several cruise missiles, forced Saudi Arabia to shut down half its oil production capacity, or 5.7 million barrels per day of crude — 5% of the world’s global daily oil production.

The images, first obtained by The Associated Press, show that at least 19 strikes were launched and 17 actually hit targets."  CNBC

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I get a big kick out of those of you who think someone faked this attack for, what;

An excuse to go to war with Iran?

An opening gambit to get the Iranians to talk to Trump at the UN?   If so, that did not work.  Khamenei has said unequivocally that they are not going to talk to the US.

Mikey Pompeo is now going to travel to Saudi Arabia to see if he can jawbone the Saudis into saying that it was undoubtedly the Iranians who done it.  Would that be going on if the Saudis had been in the plot?

So, some of you think that the Saudis blew up their own processing plant for some nefarious reason.

Or, maybe the Izzies blew it up to start a war?

Will wonders never cease?  I mean you, not the attack.  pl

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/17/satellite-photos-show-extent-of-damage-to-saudi-aramco-plants.html

Where we are now in Afghanistan- Editorial Opinion by PL

(Lt. Hamilton VC at Kabul where he commanded Sir Louis Cavangnari's escort)

A year or so after the US intervention in Afghanistan began in 2001 I perceived that there was a danger that US public and government opinion might begin to favor the idea of "nation building" in Afghanistan.  From long experience in and study of the area of Islamicate civilization and its history it seemed clear to me that such an effort would be doomed to failure at any price that one should be willing to pay in; expended effort over time, money and blood shed on all sides. 

The basic problem with Afghanistan is that there "is no there there."  Afghanistan is really a geographical expression rather than a country in the sense understood of the word in the post-Westphalian system of independent states.

Across the Islamicate world from Mauritania to Bangla Desh and beyond to Oceania there is a pronounced tendency to atomization in group perception of identity. Arabs do not identify with Berbers, etc., Tribes and clans within these groups regard all others as rivals and often enemies unless they are needed as temporary allies.

The Islamic religion which holds unity to be an ideal is often thought to be a unifier against the atomizing tendency in these cultures, but in fact there are many, many varieties of Islam, each one believing that it is uniquely favored by God.  This often cancels out whatever unifying effect Islam, as religion, can have.

Afghanistan, created as a buffer between imperial Russia and British India, is an extreme case of atomization among the inhabitants of a state which has recognition in the world political system including membership in the UN.  In spite of that status , a status that might deceive one into believing that there is such a thing as "the Afghan People,"the population of Afghanistan is actually made up of a number of different ethnic nations; Pushtuns, Hazzara, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Turcomans, Arabs, etc.  These different  peoples all speak mutually unintelligible languages which often have such extreme separation in dialect that this amounts to uninteligibility as well.   Some of these groups are Sunni and others Shia.  This is yet another factor in the separation of the segments of the population.

The country has little substantial physical infrastructure.  What there is was largely constructed in the 50s and 60s as part of Cold War competition between the USSR and the US.  There is very little legal or governmental infrastructure.  A commercial company investing its own or borrowed money in Afghanistan is taking a great risk of never being able  to recover its investment from the local "pirates."  Government is generally predatory in its attitude toward foreign investment funds.  I tried to find a safe haven in Afghanistan for some of my company's funds and could find none.  Senior Afghan government people would typically respond to questions about legal infrastructure with exhortations to "bring your project, all will be well."  Needless to say ...

US intervention in this place was inevitable after 9/11, but what was not necessary or wise were repeated US decisions for a COIN nation building campaign.  As this tendency began to be evident I argued for a much more limited goal in which the US would keep about 20K troops in country to maintain a government controlled enclave around Kabul and Bagram.  This would enable pursuit of located international  terrorist groups through raiding operations from that base area.  The basis for this strategy was my conclusion that the US could never "pacify" all of the territory of Afghanistan and that we would "break our teeth" trying.

I pressed this belief in various fora and with various individuals within the Obama Administration even as Obama endlessly contemplated the entreaties of the COINista generals, Petraeus, Mattis, McChrystal etc. for a country wide nation building COIN campaign.   The most interesting of these encounters was at an IQ2 debate at NYU in 2009 where I (and teammates) argued that "The US can never win in Afghanistan."  My side lost on points but the leader of the other team recently told me that he knows now that we were completely correct.  Obama gave in to the generals, and gave them the COIN war that they wanted.  I suppose that for "Barry" it was immensely flattering to have them "butter him up."

It is clear now that the COIN strategy has failed miserable and totally.  Afghanistan is not one bit more united or modernized than it has ever been.  The US has spent a sea of money there and many brave people have perished or been wrecked in chasing the idea of Afghanistan as a Central Asian Switzerland.

Trump has allowed Zalmai Khalilzad to attempt to achieve a negotiated peace with the Taliban, the former salafi takfiri, Pushtun rulers of Afghanistan, in the apparent belief that they could be "talked down out of the tree" just as his business competitors could always be talked down to meet at a "closing" table where his supposed "closing genius' would bring a DEAL.

Unfortunately this belief  in his closing talent goes unrewarded in Palestine, Syria, Turkey,Yemen, Iran, China (not yet), North Korea and Afghanistan.  IMO his difficulty in finding solutions lies in his entrapment within his own New York City business model, a model in which everything is for sale if the deal is structured skillfully to advantage the stronger party while all the while claiming that the party you are screwing is your friend.

Sadly for The Donald all those "stupid" foreigners do not understand that "everything is for sale."  Among them, the Taliban, an army and religio-political movement are notable for a lack of belief in the commercial possibilities of selling out to Donald Trump for a "mess of pottage"  or thirty pieces of silver whichever reference you prefer.  They want to win, and they want to be seen to have driven the "crusaders" from Afghanistan and in the process to have humiliated the US as the leading infidel state.  To that end they lie, prevaricate and await the day when they can crush the puny forces of "modernism" after the American departure.  Zalmai Khalilzad is an Afghan pushtun Sunni by birth and rearing.  Did he not know that they could not be trusted in dealings with the US?  I do not blame the Taliban for being what they are.  I blame all the American and NATO fools for believing that they could make the Taliban either go away or become "happy campers."  They were never going to do either of those things.  We should have known that.  Some of us did, but Americans are addicted to all the melting pot, right side of history foolishness so common in "levelled" America,

What should the US do now that the scales have fallen from Trump's eyes and the time of "good faith" negotiation with the Taliban is "dead?"  The first thing to do is to fire Khalilzad.

Last night, Col. (ret.) Douglas Macgregor told Tucker Carlson that the US should simply leave, and should have never intervened.  IOW we should get the hell out totally and forever.  This is a tempting thought.  I have wrestled with the attractiveness of the idea but there are certain problems with it.

1.  We should not want to give the jihadi movements proof of our feckless defeatability.  IMO if we leave suddenly the Afghan government and armed forces will soon collapse.  The country will then further disintegrate into a welter of jihadi factions and regional tribal strongmen, the strongest of which will be the Taliban.

2.  We have encouraged modernist Afghan men, women and girls to emerge from the shadows.  Shall we leave them to their fates under the rule of the jihadis.

3. What about all the translators, base workers and other people who have cast their lots with us.  The Taliban and other jihadis will simply kill them as apostates.  We abandoned a lot of such people in Iraq.  Will we do it again?

On balance I would say Macgregor is right that we must leave.  The time for a small remaining presence is past.  The forces in the field are too strong for a small force to maintain itself even with massive long range air support.  Think of Sir Louis Cavangnari.   No, we should leave, but we should leave on a schedule that will enable us to control the timing of our going and to protect the departure of those who wish to leave with us.  pl

BTW, SWMBO says that no mutually understood languages = no country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Louis_Napoleon_Cavagnari

Afghanistan - Graveyard of Dreams - Republished 28 Jan 2018, Re-republished 9 September 2019

(In light of yesterday's bombing in Kabul ...)

 

We have been in Afghanistan for how long?  16 years?  It is our longest war.  How much progress have we actually made?

1.  The government that we have tried so long to nurture controls a shrinking percentage of both territory and population.

2.  How much money have we poured into the pockets of crooks of all nationalities?  In spite of that the country is severely lacking in physical, social, legal, and business infrastructure.

3.  The country's armed forces have been expanded under NATO tutelage to such a size that the small GDP will never be able to pay for them on its own.  In spite of that they are unable even to defend their own installations.

4. The country is still racked by tribal, ethnic and jihadi wars.  It has always been thus with the exception of a golden age when the last Afghan king ruled in the 50s and 60s.  How did he do that?  He did it by careful inter-ethnic diplomacy and a minimum effort to "unify"  his realm.

5.  Attacks on NATO personnel by Afghan soldiers and police continue.

6. The capital, Kabul, is not secured and is regularly attacked.

7.  The much vaunted COIN doctrine has failed there as it has failed in so many places in the world.

In spite of this the generals and the COIN nuts persist in trying to reverse Obama's policy of withdrawal from the "country" (a geographical expression really).  President Trump, who knows nothing of things military or geo-political is about to begin the process of re-introducing US combat and training forces into this blank space on the map, a space filled with hostile tribesmen and religious fanatics.  This blank space was given the dubious status of a state in the international system of states because the Russians and the British wanted to establish a buffer entity between the Tsar's empire and the Raj.

President Trump should be told that there is nothing there of real importance to the US, nothing worth more vast quantities of our money and more rivers of our blood.  Let the Afghans, Chinese, Pakistanis, Iranians and Russians deal with the chaos.  pl

Unwarranted Hysteria Over Syria and Afghanistan by Publius Tacitus

Count me, along with Colonel Lang, as a  strong supporter of Trump's decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria and to start a drawdown in Afghanistan.

Ignore for a moment the fact that we never should have been in Syria in the first place. We went there, not to defeat ISIS, but to destroy the regime of Bashar Al Assad.

We essentially launched an unprovoked invasion of Syria while Barack Obama was President. Our troops on the ground in Syria remain there  in violation of international law. We do not even have a sound Authorization for Use of Military Force aka AUMF. We are still using the justification for going after Bin Laden as the green light for trying to destroy Assad. There is no legal justification for this but, as Colonel Lang frequently reminds me, this ain't about Hoyle.

The hysterical reaction to Trump's decision clearly ignores the fact we  have a very small footprint in Syrian--we’re only talking about a little more than 2000 Special Ops and Special Forces personnel. We have not deployed conventional forces as we did in Iraq in 2004 when more than 6000 Marines stormed Fallujah.

The SpecOps units that have been in Syria are not going into towns controlled by ISIS and slugging it out. They do not have that capability. They are doing some training, advising assistance, and intel collection. Our main killing force are drones.

John McCain is Dead by Willy B

        Of course, you already know that because the headlines are dominating the news coverage. Most of the coverage is also lionizing him as some kind of hero who defended America from his time as a POW in Vietnam to his attacks on Russia for supposedly trying to undermine American democracy. The fact is, and I know this because I've documented some of it in the course of my own work in recent years, he was a warmonger supreme. McCain never met a war–especially a regime change war–he didn't like, nor a terrorist he couldn't endorse as a "freedom fighter," especially, as in the case of Syria, if that terrorist was in the service of the regime change war he endorsed. In Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, a million or more people have died and tens of millions more are suffering as a result of these wars that McCain did so much to bring about.

        In a short but to-the-point piece. Sputnik summarizes McCain's extreme Russophobia and his love for the Nazi regime in Kiev. Vladimir Putin was being charitable when, as Sputnik recounts, he told Oliver Stone that McCain was a patriot, but one who couldn't accept that the world had changed. "People with such convictions, like the Senator you mentioned, they still live in the Old World," Putin said. "And they're reluctant to look into the future, they are unwilling to recognize how fast the world is changing." That Putin was able to say that says more about his genuine humanity than it does about McCain, who gave up whatever humanity he had a long time ago.

         Anyone fighting for a genuine peace in the world will not mourn the passing of John McCain.

 

SIGAR Report May -2018

This SIGAR report makes it crystal clear that the US lost its "hat, ass and overcoat" in Afghanistan.   We should wise up and go home resolved never, never to listen to the siren song of the COIN fantasy.  pl 

https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/lessonslearned/SIGAR-18-48-LL.pdf

The VA

 

"The Department has three main subdivisions, known as Administrations, each headed by an Undersecretary:

• Veterans Health Administration (VHA): responsible for providing health care in all its forms, as well as for biomedical research (under the Office of Research and Development), Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs), and Regional Medical Centers
• Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA): responsible for initial veteran registration, eligibility determination, and five key lines of business (benefits and entitlements): Home Loan Guarantee, Insurance, Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment, Education (GI Bill), and Compensation & Pension
• National Cemetery Administration: responsible for providing burial and memorial benefits, as well as for maintenance of VA cemeteries"  wiki

------------

 A former member of any of the US armed services may qualify for some or all of the many benefits statutorily provided by the Department of Veteran's Affairs, a cabinet level agency that employs more than 300,000 people across the country.  Many of these benefits have nothing to do with medical treatment.  Mortgages on special terms, educational support under the GI Bill, burial in a VA cemetery, disability compensation or a pension for those who were made unemployable through service but somehow not entitled to a military retirement.

Nevertheless, the focus of criticism, perhaps unfairly, is on the Veteran's Health Administration (VHA) which is said to be slow in scheduling appointments, providing treatment and bureaucratically inept and rigid.

As I understand the system, VA medical treatment in one of their many facilities is intended to be treatment for ailments  that are service connected.  Ailments that were either caused by military service or aggravated by that service are what are legally treatable by the VA medical system.  In practice in some cases a wide variety of illnesses are judged to be service connected.

The system requires that former service members apply for benefits and that a judgment be made by a board as to whether or not the service declared and proven entitles the applicant to VA benefits, including medical treatment.   This award process is conducted by the Veterans' Benefit Administration (VBA), not the VHA.  After the award is made the beneficiary can ask for treatment by the VHA.

It seems to me that the present system is inevitably somewhat slow.  The VA medical system is designed to serve former rather than retired service members.  Retired military members are still cared for by services to which they still belong, although retired, as well as by "TRICARE for life."  Retired military people can use the VA medical services but the system is not really designed to take care of them.  The system does makes emergency treatment possible prior to an award of eligibility

Because the system is designed to care for 'formers" who are no longer service members, adjudications must be made as to eligibility and the nature of injuries.  This inevitably takes time as data must be collected from a wide variety of sources. 

The alternative seems to me would be to make unlimited medical treatment for all conditions available to anyone who ever served.  Do we really want to do that?

I will welcome posts on this by guest authors.  Others who are knowledgeable and wish to comment can send me their remarks and I may publish them.  pl 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Veterans_Affairs

SIGAR Report Claims US Withholding Critical Information by The Virginian

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) was established to promote greater accountability of the taxpayer's dollars being spent in Afghanistan.  That they are saying the military is keeping information from the public that would illustrate the resurgence of Taliban (and other) insurgent elements deserves attention. Afghanistan's fate will not be determined by the US / West.

**********

A new report released on Monday states the US military is keeping information from the public that gauges the war in Afghanistan and gains made by insurgents. 

The US Defense Department has restricted data on population figures and on what areas are held by either government or insurgents, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) said in a report released on Tuesday. 

“The number of districts controlled or influenced by the Afghan government had been one of the last remaining publicly available indicators for members of Congress ... and for the American public of how the 16-year-long US effort to secure Afghanistan is faring,” John Sopko, the special inspector general, said in the report.

This however is the first time that SIGAR has been instructed not to release unclassified information in one of its quarterly reports, Sopko said, adding that the information will instead be included in an annex unavailable to the public. 

The report stated that SIGAR was not given any justification for the new restrictions. 

The SIGAR report stated that the “worrisome development” follows an increase of insurgent control or influence in Afghanistan.

As such, the non-disclosure of information was of particular concern, SIGAR reported. 

It also comes after several other measures for gauging the development and strength of Afghanistan’s security forces were blocked or restricted in the fall. Among them were casualty and attrition rates.

Click here for full report https://www.sigar.mil/pdf/quarterlyreports/2018-01-30qr.pdf#page=60

Trump Pressures Islamabad - TTG

Last Monday our President kicked off the public phase of his administration’s effort to modify the behavior of Pakistan with his “go to” tool of state power… the tweet.

“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”

I'm of two minds. Either he's trying to bully Pakistan into doing more against the Taliban and Haqqani Network or he's trying to force them into closing off our access to Afghanistan so we have no choice but to leave. The first possibility is a forlorn hope. The second would be diabolically clever.

Let’s examine the first option. It is consistent with USG policy since 9/11. At that time the Bush administration issued Pakistan an ultimatum. You either assist us in Afghanistan or we will destroy you. Although our objectives in Afghanistan have shifted over the last sixteen years, our nagging complaint that Pakistan is not doing enough to help us has remained constant. I’m sure the Pentagon and Borgists the world over are hoping that Trump’s blustering and bullying style will intimidate Pakistan into submission and, thus, ensuring our ultimate victory in Afghanistan… whatever that entails. 

I don’t see any chance of this working. Yes the money is good, but the constant abuse emanating from Washington has been wearing on leadership in Islamabad and on the Pakistani street. They’re sick of it. Imran Khan, who will probably be the next prime minister in Islamabad, has called for Pakistan to walk away from the US and forge an alliance with China, Russia and Iran. China is certainly willing to take up the slack. They won’t be as generous as the US has been, but the aid will come without the condescending lectures. Russia may be interested. Iran may also be interested just to get us and our coalition out of their backyard. 

How serious is Washington about playing chicken with Islamabad? When Rand Paul suggested that the money would be better spent on US infrastructure, Trump tweeted, “Good idea Rand!” That will be a popular idea for all Americans outside of the Borg. If this idea, and bill, gains traction, it will be hard to walk back. Although Mattis has said he is not worried about Pakistani threats of closing the roads into Afghanistan, he is worried about the closing of Pakistani airspace. That would put our forces and the Afghan army we’re still trying to create in a serious bind. Although our footprint and logistical requirements are smaller than they were years ago, the Afghan army we are creating is highly dependent on a continuous flow of Western military materiel. We no longer have the Manas Air Base as we did when we temporarily lost access to our LOCs in Pakistan in 2010. And, ironically, Russia may not be as willing to bail us out this time. I get the feeling we are trying to play chicken with a bridge abutment.

The other possibility is that Trump truly is diabolically clever and is executing a grand con on the Borg. He may be deliberately steering our current Afghan policy into that bridge abutment so that we are forced to withdraw from the area. He may not be a very stable genius, but he is a first class bullshit artist and skilled con man. That’s what it would take to pull something like this off.

Frankly I don’t care if this is due to a diabolical cleverness or an act worthy of Jubilation T. Cornpone. If it results in the US leaving Afghanistan, I’m all for it.

TTG

Recommended Reading:

US suspends about $2 billion security assistance to Pakistan

US Military Weighs Options In Case Pakistan Blocks Afghan Supply Lines

Pakistan attacks US for cutting military aid

U.S. weighs Pakistani blowback as it piles pressure on Islamabad

Trump cannot afford breaking off ties with Pakistan: NYT

China may be looking to exploit a US move to cut aid to Pakistan

At least Nauru is still with us ...

 

"  nine states – including the United States and Israel –voted against the resolution. The other countries which supported Washington were Togo, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Guatemala and Honduras."  Guardian

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(irony alert) So, Perfidious Albion has bitten the hand that fed them.  That's right isn't it?  No?  What about all that Spam we sent them when they ran out of crumpets?  What about that?  Why would Palau have voted on our side?  Ah, there must be some pot of Golden Grickels from which they sup, maybe something about a Jack London memorial pearl fishery or, something. (end of irony)

 

Nikki Haley, is a city girl flower of South Carolina politics.  Do you suppose that she may be learning that THE WORLD is harder to bully than a bunch of "good ole boys" who like to put Rebel flag decals on their pick-up trucks?

And then, there are the related spectacles of the Israeli UN ambassador sneering just now on the TeeVee at THE WORLD whilst Iraq, Afghanistan, Jordan, Turkey and Egypt voted for the resolution.  I guess that means that they don't need the money badly enough to roll over when ordered. 

There will be no peace for Israel.  pl 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/21/united-nations-un-vote-donald-trump-jerusalem-israel

Tillerson’s Trip & the new Great Game (FB Ali)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hasn’t travelled the world anywhere as much as his predecessor, Hilary Clinton; she covered almost a million miles! That is why his recent trip to South Asia excited some attention. It also brought into focus the new Great Game being played in South and Central Asia. In this new version, the United States has replaced Great Britain while, in addition to Russia, China has also become a player on the board.

Secretary Tillerson’s trip began at Al Udeid, the US base in Qatar. He and his staff donned helmets and flak jackets, and boarded a military C-17 plane. Flying in less than first-class comfort, they stoically endured the ride, including the standard deep dive onto Bagram airbase. From the plane they were quickly rushed (driving through high concrete blast walls) to the US HQ in a former prison on the base, while helicopters patrolled the perimeter and two security blimps equipped with long-range cameras hovered above.

Unable to risk the short trip into Kabul, Tillerson met with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and others, including chief executive Abdullah Abdullah, in a windowless room on the base, while US troops stood guard outside. The communiqués issued by the US and Afghan governments after this meeting included the obligatory picture of the two leaders in their meeting. Unfortunately, these pictures resulted in more attention being paid afterwards to the mystery of the vanishing clock on the wall, than to any substantive results from the meeting.

The generals rolled him, as they rolled Obama ...

 

Before an audience of troops ordered into attendance, DJT gave us his decision on policy in Afghanistan:

1.  "There will be no blank check."  Since the applicability of this statement was not made clear, I will take it to mean that there will be limits as to how many military resources will be "invested" in Afghanistan, how much US taxpayers' money is spent there for however long it (victory) takes.  Nevertheless, no numbers were provided for possible troop end strengths or expenditures.

2.  "Decisions about future policy will be based on events on the ground, not on schedules decided in Washington."  This means that there will be no oversight over the commander in Afghanistan except by Mattis and McMaster, the apparent authors of this policy.  This is an abandonment of the American policy of civilian control of the military.  The last time we did this was in WW2 in the European theater.  In the Pacific the rivalry betwee MacArthur and the Navy made oversight by FDR a possibility. 

3.  We will fight until victory is achieved, victory being defined as a secure position for the elected government and an absence of terrorist plots against the US being "hatched" in Afghanistan.

4.  We will not "nation build," but will maintain the aforesaid government in power.  This presumably will cost a lot more money.

5.   "As the prime minister of Afghanistan has promised, we are going to participate in economic development to help defray the cost of this war to us."  Text of Speech.   As is well known I am not sympathetic to economic explanations of history but this has a name, "colonialism."

6.  Pakistan is defined by Trump in this speech as a major haven and sponsor of terrorism in Afghanistan.  IMO this is correct.  DJT says that pressure will be applied to correct this.

7.  India is summoned in the speech to help us achieve "victory" in Afghanistan and in helping us control Pakistan's adverse behavior.  India and Pakistan are enemies and both are nuclear armed.  Pakistan, as I have written elsewhere, can range the eastern Mediterranean with its mobile ballistic missiles when positioned in western Baluchistan.

8. All restrictions will be removed from the actions of military commanders in the field.

9.  It was repeatedly said in the speech that we must struggle on to victory to justify the losses we have suffered thus far.  This is sentimental nonsense.  Such reasoning completely ignores the principle of necessary acceptance of "sunk costs" that should be obvious to a businessman.

-------------

IMO this speech was written in McMaster's national security policy shop.  It is filled with mutually conflicting and sentimental items the foolishness of which are compounded by very imperfect understandings of the peoples of the region.  The conditions for "victory" are unattainable.  There will always be insurgent movements in Afghanistan, movements that threaten the country's stability and there will alway be jihadis hatching plots in Afghanistan againt the US.  

Therefore, this is a recipe for unending colonial stye war waged by the US in South Asia.  

What would a wise policy be?  You tell me.  pl 

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/08/21/president-trumps-primetime-address-on-afghanistan-annotated/?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.2f0aaa25d71d

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/08/22/daily-202-a-dozen-key-lines-from-trump-s-afghanistan-speech/599b8cf930fb0435b8208f72/?utm_term=.1c4e42a7211d

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2017/08/httpswwwbingcomvideossearchq22americacannotandwillnotsucceedinafghanistan2fpakistanqpvt22amer.html 

http://nypost.com/2017/08/21/i-hope-trump-is-right-and-im-wrong-on-afghanistan/

Strategery and tactickery in Eurasia

There is not enough data with which to do an adequate job of analysis on all that is occurring just now, but I think I must make a preliminary "stab" at it with the understanding that all this is subject to revision.

1.  Russia/Turkey.   "My dear friend" is what Erdogan called Putin several times yesterday, and now Erdogan has issued an "ultimatum" to the US to hand over Gulen or forget about its relationship to Turkey.  Firstly, lets get the nukes out of Incirlik.  Why tempt the sultan?  Secondly, does this mean that Turkey will abandon its support of the non-IS rebels in Syria?  My SWAG would be that it does not.  I would expect that Erdogan will try to have it both ways.  IMO he will try to surrepticiously continue to make Turkey available as strategic depth to the rebels while simultaneously trying to obtain Russian support against the emergence of anything like a Syrian statelet.  Whether or not the YPG Kurds and the SDF Arabs advance to al-Bab, heavy IS counterattacks should be expected as the occupation of Manbij threatens remaining  IS communications from Turkey to the Caliphate. 

2. Iraq.  The US/Iraqi effort on the axis Baghdad-Mosul is going to take a long time to develop.  The Iraqi Army and militia forces still have a long way to go to develop the kind of capability that the Pesh Merga and YPG Kurds already have.  A Clinton Administration advised by people like Morell and the AEI neocons would likely double-down on the Iraq effort with US ground troops to carry the offensives all the way to Raqqa and Mosul.   Would the US then let the Iraqi government run the country? IMO that is an open question.  Big Grandma (the Borg Queen) may well think that the children do not play together well enough to be left unsupervised.

3.  Afghanistan.   IS and the Taliban have made a deal to cooperate against the Kabul government.  This doesn't sound like good news.  The government is saddled with "forces of order" that are far too large and expensive for it to ever afford.  It seems to me that this makes the Afghan government something familiar to me, i.e., a regime with large, fairly clumsy forces trying to defend a number of more or less besieged localities against guerrillas who control the countryside.   All of this makes Afghanistan an unacknowledged overseas protectorate of the US.  Will Big Grandma double down there as well?

4.  Libya.  US, French and British SF are engaged on the ground in holding back the IS "hordes."  Well, smallish "Hordes," are evidently the case at present.  But ... small "hordes" may grow.  What will Big Grandma do then?

5.  Ukraine.  I don't know.  Someone please tell me.

6.  Syria.  My SWAG is that R+6 will be able to seal off the penetration in SW Aleppo and re-isolate East Aleppo.   The jihadi friendly media are doing their best to depict the jihadi rebels and their supporters in the pocket as something like Robin Hood and his archers or maybe the Cisco Kid fighting off the forces of Spanish oppression.  That doesn't work very well.   Jihadis are, well, jihadis, but the process of myth building will probably make them heroic figures just as the Argentinian adventurer, Che Guevara has become a tee-shirt theme.  If the Turks do not provide enough support across the Hatay border crossings, the rebel losses at Aleppo and along the dusty, air stricken roads in Idlib will have greatly weakened the rebels.  We will then see if R+6 has enough strength and energy to launch an offensive into Idlib.  If not, then the Russians and Iranians will have to re-think their deployed strength levels in Syria.  pl

Most American Don't Care About U.S. Foreign Policy

And don't know much about it.  Alas!

Most Americans will vote for the candidate who not merely promises, but seems likely to deliver on domestic policies that will address local problems, that will benefit the issues that roil American communities (e.g., schools, pre-school, police, homelessness), that will actually fund sorely needed infrastructure construction and repair, that will provide jobs, and etc.

The Post-Convention Thread-2016 below that invited "foreigners" to jump in (and they did) suggests that somehow Americans follow the ups and downs of our foreign adventures, and are susceptible to voting on that score. They don't. So.... as I said above, "alas."

The anti-Clinton theme on that thread may reflect real knowledge of her politics and policies (or the suspected ones should she be elected). When Americans sober up after the conventions, we are very likely to see that whatever Trump may promise, most will come to understand that he doesn't have the foggiest idea of how to deliver on domestic issues, even if he wants to. Whereas Hillary Clinton will deliver on some of them.

Just a sober word  for Trump enthusiasts around the world. 

Margaret Steinfels

 

 

The Panderers

 

""Unlike Donald Trump, I will not pander to the gun lobby," Clinton said during a keynote speech at the Trayvon Martin Foundation's Circle of Mothers dinner. "We will not be silenced and we will not be intimidated."

Clinton made the comments a day after Trump was endorsed by the National Rifle Association. 

"Parents, teachers, and schools should have the right to keep guns out of classrooms, just like Donald Trump does at many of his hotels, by the way," she said. "This is someone running to be president of the United States of America, a country facing a gun violence epidemic, and he's talking about more guns in our schools.""  nbcnews

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Well...  NRA has five million members and is in very sound shape financially.  It is a member oriented, gun owner oriented group.   It receives the great bulk of its funds through membership dues and some as well from gun manufacturer advertising in NRA publications such as "The American Rifleman."  The gun manufacturers have their own trade association.  There seems to be a generalized phenomenon in which the more anti-gun people like HC and Obama try to create impediments to gun ownership, the more NRA grows in numbers of members.  There is a general belief in the US that when the anti-gun people say that their ultimate goal is "reasonable restrictions on gun ownership," they lie.    IMO and that of most gun owners, the anti-gun people who say this really want a process that leads eventually to general confiscation or limitations that amount to the same thing.  Hillary seems to be running on the basis that men, and particularly white men do not matter and that she will be elected by women, racial minorities, the far left, the media the LGBT "community," etc.  This seems short sighted.  The US is not the UK, Australia, Japan, or Canada when the issue of gun ownership is in play.   There are about 100 million gun owners in the US.  That is about a third of the population.  Roughly 5 % of gun owners belong to NRA.   That fairly low participation rate is not IMO reflective of a lack of sympathy for NRA.  IMO the gun owning public generally supports NRA's political efforts but most people would rather not pay dues and are content to wait, watch and then vote.    For HC to bait gun owners by associating them rhetorically with a loser like Zimmerman, the South Carolina lunatic and the mad boy at New Town is so provocative a thing to do that it will certainly cost her a lot of votes.  In all those particular cases the guns involved were legally purchased and background checked.  If that does not suffice what would suffice for HC?

OTOH, Trump's now passionate defense of the 2nd Amendment is so obviously opportunistic that it too can easily seen as pandering to his audience at the NRA convention.

But, pilgrims, gun owners can read HC's passion on this subject clearly, very clearly.  pl 

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/hillary-clinton-calls-trump-s-guns-schools-plan-way-out-n578161

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Rifle_Association

De Oppresso Liber - TTG

The U.S. Army has reversed a decision to discharge a locally championed Green Beret for "body slamming" an Afghani police commander officer accused of raping a boy. Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland will be allowed to continue to serve at least through the end of his enlistment after an Army board on Wednesday determined that his personnel file contained an “error or injustice,” according to Stars and Stripes.

“For everyone who fought for this, thank you,” said Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper. “This was not only important for Sgt. 1st Class Martland and his family. It was important to every serviceman and woman who when far away from home has wondered if the American people still care. The answer is yes.” A former Green Beret himself, Freitas took up Martland’s cause in February, delivering an impassioned speech on the floor of the statehouse that went on to be viewed online by more than a million.

Martland has maintained the only blemish on his personnel record is an October 2011 “memorandum of reprimand,” issued by Brig. Gen. Christopher K. Haas, then-commander of the Combined Forces Special Operations Component Command in Afghanistan, according to the Army Times. The reprimand was issued after Martland and his commander hit a local police leader in September 2011 while deployed to a remote Afghani combat outpost. The Green Beret shoved and slammed Abdul Rahman into the ground after he’d admitted to chaining a 12-year-old boy and sexually assaulting him repeatedly for several days, according to the Army Times. Martland was relieved of duty and sent back to the U.S. for his actions that Hass wrote were “the intentional assault” of Rahman. (Star-Exponent)

————————————————————

I was not aware of this case until a few days ago. I don’t know how I missed it. My point in posting this now is to beseech all members of this committee of correspondence and all those who visit SST to view the speech made by Delegate Nick Freitas on the floor of the Virginia Statehouse last February on the behalf of SFC Charles Martland. Freitas is a former Special Forces NCO. In his five minute speech, he captures the essence of the case and the essence of what it means to be a Green Beret. 

For more background on this incident and the aftermath, review the Army Times articles linked below. Anything further I have to say on this will be in the comments.

TTG

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/careers/army/enlisted/2015/08/21/green-beret-striking-corrupt-afghan-got-me-kicked-out/32080843/

http://www.armytimes.com/story/military/2016/04/28/green-beret-who-beat-up-accused-child-rapist-can-stay-army/83679604/

Bacevich on force levels and policy.

 

"To fulfill its self-imposed obligations as sole superpower, the United States would need a citizenry that subscribes to the cwarrior-patriot’s code: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. How sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country. Most Americans are far more likely to subscribe to the code vividly displayed each weekend in Style sections of newspapers. There, the appeal of dying for one’s country takes a backseat to the latest tips on relationships, restaurants, recipes, street wear, household furnishings, and places to be seen.

Between what our duties as a self-proclaimed indispensable nation ostensibly require and what our freewheeling culture encourages, there exists a contradiction. In the White House, the Pentagon, and the Congress, the stewards of U.S. national security policy assume they can manage that contradiction. Yet day-by-day, evidence suggesting otherwise piles up."  Dallas news.

----------------

Colonel (Ret.) Doctor Bacevich believes that the numbers recruitable for the US armed forces on a voluntary basis are not large enough to sustain a foreign policy as aggressive as ours.

He and I fought in Vietnam.  We had over 500,000 troops there in 1968 just before Nixon's phased withdrawal began.  There were also several hundred thousand anticommunist native troops.  South Vietnam and the adjoining countries were very large.  The numbers available to us were, IMO, marginal in the task of trying to defend the country against the Viet Cong/NVA.

If that is so, then how ridiculous was the attempt to occupy and pacify Iraq and/or Afghanistan with what amounted to a relative handful of men.  It was obvious from the beginning that the numbers available were too small.  The voodoo semi-religion of COIN was used to inflict the delusion of sufficiency of forces on the armed forces of the US.  This doctrinal fantasy was spread by people like McMaster, Nagl, Kilcullen and a cluster of other "children" who professed to have learned  in libraries that VN was lost to the communists because the US blundered around in the jungles and rice paddies throughout the war trying to re-fight the Battle of the Bulge or the Okinawa campaign.  In fact the US sought assiduously to apply the COIN folly to VN throughout the war, and did it with resources that were vastly greater than any available in the GWOT.  I was there and worked with the CORDS/COIN apparat.  So, I guess I probably know what I am talking about.

Colonel Bacevich does not seem very specific about the solution to the question that he poses. 

It seems clear to me that the draft will not return.  Bacevich says that as well.  He and I agree that American culture is now so sybaritic and self-obsessed that it is unlikely that the force necessary to pursue our self-assigned mission of world "purification" can be created and maintained.

As a rationalist I feel it necessary to say that the "reach" of US foreign policy has, since 9/11, exceeded its "grasp."  We should give up our R2P dreams and define US security interest as being the defense of the homeland.  If we do that then the numbers available and our policy would begin to match.  pl  

http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20160418-andrew-bacevich-why-americas-all-volunteer-force-fails-to-win-wars.ece

Islamic World Tour d'Horizon - 28 February 2016

" ... that state of affairs does not satisfy the SAA which ordered the Republican Guard’s 102nd Brigade and 416th Regiment to fully liberate Eastern Guta from the Islamists. SAA is supported by National Defense Force (NDF) militias and Palestinian Liberation Army units.

It appears that the attack will be focused on the Tel Ferzat heights and the agricultural college campus. These are the militants’ last strongholds in eastern Damascus.

Latakia Province

Commandos of the 103rd Republican Guard Brigade are performing beyond reproach in Latakia’s north-east, where they are operating with naval infantry and volunteer formation support. Nearly whole region is now clear of the militants.

Syrian commandos forced Jabhat al-Nusra and Ahrar ash-Sham off two key heights and approached the border with Turkey which is now only 2km distant. A few more heights remain to be cleared of the Islamists.

Aleppo Province

Earlier reports that the main supply road to Aleppo was cleared proved premature. Tiger Forces did indeed clear most of the towns along the “road of life”, however it still remains under militant fire.

Tiger Forces with Hezbollah support finally threw ISIS out of Al-Hamam. The commandos entered the village last evening and then forced the militants to abandon it. Militant counter-attack had failed, with the loss of 30 of their comrades. Additional 40 were wounded.

Stubborn fighting against ISIS is ongoing along the Sheikh Hilal–Ithriyah road, which is a secondary supply route into Aleppo. SAA forces received significant air support which struck militant reinforcement columns coming from Hama. It is expected the opening of both routes is only a matter of hours, and then the path to Aleppo will be once again clear."  South Front 

http://southfront.org/syria-battlefields-survey-february-27/

----------------

I am beginning to appreciate this "cease-fire."  In essence the R+6 war against jihadis will continue as will the US coalition struggle with IS.  At the same time TTG's favorite Kurds (with the help of our GB brothers) will press forward with efforts as fine as the recent victory at Shaddadi.  Politically, the Russian coordination center at Lattakia has hung out the welcome banner for more or less non-jihadi resistance groups.  this is splitting off those groups from the jihadis whom, we should remember, are still legitimate targets and objectives for air and ground action.  At the same time, a somewhat reduced operational tempo provides an opportunity to rest and refit troops/militias committed too long to continuous combat.   pl

***********

"Suicide bombers and gunmen attacked Iraqi army and police posts on the western outskirts of Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 12 security forces and seizing positions in a grain silo and a cemetery, officials said.

The largest assault near the capital in months was still raging, said security officials who blamed Islamic State. A news agency that supports Islamic State said the group had launched a "wide attack" in Abu Ghraib.

Suicide bombers in vehicles and on foot attacked government positions 25 km (15 miles) from the centre of Baghdad and next to the international airport, government officials said.

Dozens of militants driving Humvees and pickup trucks fixed with machine guns attacked from the nearby Islamic State-controlled areas of Garma and Falluja, army and police sources added."  Reuters

http://in.reuters.com/article/mideast-crisis-iraq-idINKCN0W10EV

---------------

Well, so much for Iraqi government domination of the western approaches to Baghdad.  The notion is laughable.  IS in Northern Arabia may collapse from defeat in Syria and at the hands of the YPG Kurds.  In that event the Iraqi "army" may re-occupy Mosul but that would be problematic in itself since IMO the Shia government in Baghdad will continue to oppress any and all Sunnis available for oppression.  Like a leopard they cannot change their essential spots.  pl

*********

" ... the Saudis may be applying pressure to secure the release of a member of the royal family held in Lebanon since October on drug charges. Abdul-Mohsen al-Waleed Al Saud was detained in Beirut after authorities seized two tons of amphetamine Captagon pills before they were loaded onto his private plane.

On Wednesday, a Lebanese prosecutor indicted Al Saud of dealing and using drugs. Other analysts suggest Saudi Arabia may be seeking to compensate for its declining hold over Lebanon.

Saudi Arabia’s influence has been dwindling in Lebanon since early 2011 when Sa’ad Hariri was ousted. For the past two years, the Saudi-backed March 14 coalition has failed to see one of their leaders elected president. Now they are nominating legislator Suleiman Franjieh, a close ally of Hezbollah, for the country’s top job.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah is boosted by recent victories in Syria. The resistance movement is fighting alongside the Syrian army against Takfiri militants supported by Saudi Arabia and its allies. “Saudi Arabia is feeling for a good reason that its influence in Lebanon is on the decline,” said Ayham Kamel, a Middle East expert with the political risk and consulting firm, Eurasia Group. “The Saudi message is don’t think you can translate victories in Syria and control the system in Lebanon. We have plenty of leverage through our economic muscles,” Kamel told the Associated Press."  South Front

http://southfront.org/lebanon-will-not-become-saudi-emirate-hezbollah/

------------

The Saudis should stick to their usual practice of the widespread distribution of money in Lebanon for the purpose of buying influence.  This is their customary form of action and Lebanese of all confessions and classes are more than willing to participate.   At the same time, most Christians, Sunni Muslims, Hizbullah and all the other associated Shia forces in Lebanon are determined to remain free of Saudi political control.  This determination will not, of course, prevent the acceptance of Saudi money delivered through various "laundries."  pl 

"... Now it might take decades." Washpost

 

" ... there is a broad recognition in the Pentagon that building an effective Afghan army and police force will take a generation’s commitment, including billions of dollars a year in outside funding and constant support from thousands of foreign advisers on the ground.

“What we’ve learned is that you can’t really leave,” said a senior Pentagon official with extensive experience in Afghanistan and Iraq who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. “The local forces need air support, intelligence and help with logistics. They are not going to be ready in three years or five years. You have to be there for a very long time.”

Senior U.S. commanders have also been surprised by al-Qaeda’s resilience and ability to find a haven in the Afghan countryside, as well as the Taliban’s repeated seizure of large tracts of contested territory."  Washpost

------------

We pay these guys?  We educated them in what we describe as Staff or War Colleges?  (Self referential hazard) I graduated from a variety of the "higher" US service schools and I will tell you that there was nothing very creative that was taught in any of them.  It was essentially "cook book" teaching.

A lot of people on SST start to glow red in the eyes when I say something favorable about the WWI and II German Army, but the contrast in pedagogy is striking.  The German Army systematically (of course) first selected the smartest young officers  to become the intellectual core of the Army.  It then taught these officers the Army's doctrine for combat.  Following that, the same Army taught them to ignore that doctrine when that was necessary and to think for themselves.

That is not what happens in the US.  In this country most national board selected war college attendees (these are the top service schools) are essentially mirror images of the present caste of senior officers.  They are people who have consistently been the best uniformed bureaucrats, the best apple polishers, the people who looked the best in the official file photographs (no mustache!), and it does not hurt one's chances if a relative is a three or four star flag officer. A majority are (in Myers-Briggs terms) SJs.  These are the guys who make the trains run on time.  They are wedded to the palpable and the "here and now."  Not surprisingly they are not good at what Bush 41 called "the vision thing."  They typically form large committees seeking to understand the future by reducing all factors to tiny and edible bits.  It is understandable that they detest the MB test as well as those those who do have "the vision thing."  Well, pilgrims,  by and large this group of future-blind careerists run the armed forces and its interactions with the foreign policy community.

In Afghanistan these people have relentlessly sought to apply the recipes bestowed on them by people like Petraeus, Kilcullen et al to the project of nation building that we have attempted since 2009.  It is a failure.  Is that not clear?

Afghanistan is not  a nation-state.  It never was.  There is a state of Afghanistan that is inhabited by five or six different ethnic nations.  They do not share a common language.  The economy amounts to next to nothing except in the parts the Chinese hope to make something of.  The armed forces and police are far larger than anything Afghanistan can possibly support in the present or future.  That means that the Americans (mainly) will have to support this artificial and inorganic creation forever.

The generals have "learned" that we cannot leave?  The French thought that of Algeria until De Gaulle wisely decided to leave.

I say again.  We pay these guys?  pl 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/01/26/the-u-s-was-supposed-to-leave-afghanistan-by-2017-now-it-might-take-decades/

Yahya McCain is unhappy with Kerry

The senior  senator from Arizona (and Washington advocate for the non IS rebels and jihadis) took the floor in the US Senate today to denounce Secretary of State John (Winter Soldier) Kerry for his apparent willingness to compromise with the Russians in the matter of a possible future peace in Syria.

Long ago I had a senior civilian colleague in DIA who hated the Soviets with passion and bitterness..   She had an equivalent position to mine, but hers was altogether concerned with the USSR.  She was so obsessed with the Sovs that it truly clouded her judgment, caused her to deny the possibility of Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, to deny the possibility of Soviet collapse and in so doing she placed the Director of DIA, a good and effective man, in deep jeopardy in the jungle world of Washington.

It took me years to understand that the USSR was for her a second best enemy.  She, her mother and brother had been interned by the Japanese on Java.  If you mentioned the Japanese to her, the eyes began to glow red.  The Soviet thing was not about them.  It was really about the Japanese.

IMO Yahya McCain has the same problem.  The people he would really like to get his hands on are beyond his reach.  All that matiness on his part in Hanoi was just anger management.  pl

Bergdahl to face a General Court Martial.

"Monday’s decision rejecting that recommendation means that Sergeant Bergdahl now faces a maximum five-year penalty if ultimately convicted by a military jury of desertion, as well as potential life imprisonment on the more serious charge of misbehavior before the enemy, which in this case means endangering the troops who were sent to search for him after he disappeared."  NY Times

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In the US Army an investigating officer (in this case MG Dahl) does his investigation in the name of and at the behest of the Convening Authority (in this case General Robert B Abrams).  Abrams is the Commanding General of US Army Forces Command, a headquarters that "owns" all US based Army ground and aviation forces.  Since Dahl was acting as Abrams' "agent" in this matter Abrams was in no way obliged to accept Dahl's recommendation and chose instead to apply the full rigor of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).  This is the law code created by Congress for the US armed forces.

I thought Dahl's recommendation far too lenient.

Desertion in combat (Article 85) has normally carried a maximum penalty of death by firing squad.  I see from this article in the NY Times that the maximum penalty now allowed in these circumstances is five years at hard labor.  Misbehavior in the Presence of the enemy (Article 99) is usually applied in cases of cowardice in combat.  In this case it is being applied for conduct resulting in aggravated risk to his comrades because they had to go out and search for him in "Indian Country."  A conviction under Article 99 normally resulted in the past in death by firing squad.  Apparently the maximum penalty now is life imprisonment at hard labor.  BTW, death by firing squad has traditionally been thought preferable to hanging in the military profession because it is a soldier's death.  You may think death is death but, what do you know? 

 Robert B Abrams is Creighton Abrams' son.  The father was a legendary and beloved Chief of Staff of the US Army.  He was a highly effective tank battalion and "combat command" (brigade) commander in Patton's Third Army.  He was quoted as having told his men as they approached the German border in 1944 that "the shortest road home leads through Berlin."  I first met him when he walked up behind me during a fire fight in a rubber plantation in 1968.  He had been passing by in a helicopter and stopped by to see how things were going.

We live in a time in which the nanny state and a lot of soft people want to treat combat soldiers as though they are all mentally wounded children and therefore not responsible for their actions.  Dahl's recommendation smelled of a desire to accommodate the president in this kind of attitude.  In fact, soldiers must be held to their duty, the duty they swore to.  If that is not done, discipline in the military will fall to bits and then the soft people will have to look to their own defense.

I do not know Robert B Abrams but I think his father would approve of his decision.  pl 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/us/bowe-bergdahl-to-face-court-martial-on-desertion-charges.html 

Experiencing the Nemesis of hubric exceptionalism‑Who are we now? ORIGIN

 

The [George W. Bush] aide, [Narcissus],  … said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/faith-certainty-and-the-presidency-of-george-w-bush.html

           For the last few years I have been trying unsuccessfully to discern some consistent, organizing theme to American foreign policy in the supposedly post Cold War Era.  A few facts that appear to be true relating to the MENA have really bothered me because of their contradictory nature.  Recently, one of the members of this Committee posted a serious question for the Committee he had picked up somewhere else on the Internet. 

           The question is as follows:

Just trying to keep my scorecard straight. Let’s see. The Americans are using a Turkish airbase to bomb ISIS and protect our allies the Kurds.

 The Turks are bombing our allies the Kurds while we are using their airbase.  The Americans are supplying human shields for terrorist in Syria who are being bombed by the Russians.

On the Iraqi side, American air power is being used to protect and support the new Iranian puppet regime in Iraq installed by the Americans after the gulf war.  The Mahdi army that we fought in Sadr City are now advanced element of the Iraqi army we are protecting.

Officers of “the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism” the Iranians are standing next to Iraqi officers who are standing next to American officers all cooperating to kill ISIS soldiers who have been receiving weapons from Americans through American proxies we consider”moderate rebels”.

Meanwhile, our “enemies” the Iranians are supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen while our “allies” the people who destroyed the trade centers have involved the U.S. in yet another unauthorized war by aggressively attacking the houthis who were helping the U. S. fight Al Queda in Yemen before .

In the meanwhile “moderate rebels” are undoubtedly being furnished weapons capable of bringing down Russian war planes. So while Russia is bombing ISIS, we are encouraging our proxies to shoot down their planes.

Will someone tell me whose side we are on today?

Jihadi Apocalypse (A War Game) Turn 1

At popular request we will have a war game on the subject of the downfall of the current weller of jihadists in the context of the seemingly never ending sine curves of Sunni revivalism over the centuries.

The game will be played in turns- probably three, but, who knows...  An initial scenario and crowdsourced comments will be followed after a bit by another scenario, one that has been affected by the crowdsourcing, etc. 

I will be the judge of the value of individual comments and of the extent to which any or all comments will affect the next game turn scenario.

Game time will begin 2 November, 2015 and the first move will extend in Game Time to 1 February, 2016.  Following moves will extend through periods of Game Time to be announced with the new turn.

Turn One Scenario:

Syria -The R+6 coalition of (Russia+SAA+Iran+Hizbullah+YPG Kurds+progovernment sectarian militias+Palestinian militias continues its offensives all over NW Syria, South of Damascus and in the rebel held suburbs of Damascus.

Turkey - Erdogan's crypto Islamist party regained control of the parliamentary political process in November.  In spite of that, outrage has grown in Turkey against obvious ant-Kurdish government military and police action and Erdogan's attempts to subvert the Kemalist secular constitution.  Turkey maintains a supposedly neutral posture in the islamist war against secularism in Syria while continuing to facilitate islamist supply and reinforcements through Turkish territory.  US/Turkish problems over Turkish bombing of the YPG Kurds (US allies) and their USSF advisers has continued and a possible withdrawal of permission for US use of the base at Incirlik looms.

Iraq -  The Abadi government's cooperation with Russia and Iran continues to increase.

Israel - Coordination of activities with Russia continues but occasional Israeli air attacks in Syria against Hizbullah targets has created additional tension with Russia.

Iran - Participation in the R+6 coalition continues to grow in both Syria and Iraq as well as in Russia's diplomatic efforts with regard to Syria.

Gulfies -SA and friends in the Gulf continue to support jihadi enemies of secularism in Syria and Iraq.

US - America continues to support anti-Western forces in Syria and Iraq.  US Army Green Berets are inserted into the territory controlled by the YPK Kurds to assist them in various ways.

Russia - Continues to press its diplomatic effort seeking to craft a peace that does not hand over Syria to jihadis.  at the same time Russia continues to reinforce both its air and ground expeditionary forces in Syria.

Ukraine - The Kiev government continues to attempt to regain territory in the east.

Afghanistan - Government control continues to be contested heavily by Taliban forces.

World Economy - Oil and Gas prices around the world remain "soft."

China - ???????

Comments in the game that are just meaningless or silly will not be posted or considered. 

The question posed - What will happen between 2 November, 2015 and 1 February 2016?  Real World comments in this turn will close on 5 November, 2015.  pl 

Warlords

"The increasing reliance on the militias is the latest sign that the United States’ signature effort in Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks — building a capable army and police force — is buckling under a challenge from the Taliban. That has prompted President Obama to cancel the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops, prolonging the United States’ longest war.

In Qala-e-Zal district, power is in the hands of Gechi, a stout former mujahideen warrior with a thick salt-and-pepper mustache, who was once bankrolled by U.S. forces and is again a beneficiary of their largesse."   Washpost

-----------

Now that the "captains and the kings" have departed, Afghanistan remains what it has always been, a fractious expanse of territory inhabited by a multitude of peoples speaking mutually unintelligible languages whose political divisions are very much a question of local loyalties, customs and leaders.

"Afghanistan" lacks the social and cultural infrastructure to  make western style institutions work.  It lacks the ability to create an army that is more than a palace guard in the capital region.  It lacks the ability to control its vast territory.

It should have been obvious in 2009 when Obama adopted COIN country modernization as his program that Afghanistan could not be made "modern" in less than the "generations" that the neocons used to speak of.  IMO the "generations" needed would have been many, many generations, something like the number of generations for which British rule endured in India.  The effect on the "Afghans" might have been beneficial after many bloody generations of oppressive colonial rule, but the effect on Americans would have been terrible as we grew accustomed to imperial overlordship.  That effect can be glimpsed in the portrayal of the late state Raj in the current TV series, "Indian Summers."

The withdrawal of NATO forces is now politically irreversible in the US despite Obama's futile dithering.  In that circumstance Afghanistan is reverting to its true lifestyles.  Those forms of society inevitably include local warlords and chiefs like the man described in this article.

The COIN fantasy has failed yet again.  pl 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as-taliban-resurges-an-afghan-warlord-gains-power/2015/10/29/5e431aaa-21bf-4713-b681-7226681c18a1_story.html

 

Update On the Kunduz Hospital Attack

Note: I hope to write about a range of matters, here, of strategic-military importance, but the response to my first posting on the Kunduz hospital attack suggests that an update is in order. Willy B

    On Oct. 23, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced that the preliminary report on civilian casualties in the Oct. 3 US attack on the MSF hospital in Kunduz is taking longer than was expected. “We want to get this done, but we want to get it done right,” Carter  said at a Pentagon press briefing. “Accountability is part of our obligation to those who died in Kunduz and it must inform everything we do here at the Department of Defense.” He's also waiting for the broader military investigation, "But I think in both of these cases, what's important is that we get it right."
    MSF reported, at the same time, that the death toll has risen and will likely rise some more. "As of October 23 the revised figures now stand at 13 MSF staff members dead and one presumed dead; 10 patients dead and two patients presumed dead," it reported, and 27 confirmed wounded though that final figure may change, too. They have since adjusted the death toll to 30. "Beyond the immediate death toll, the destruction of MSF’s 94-bed trauma center will have a huge impact on access to surgical care for hundreds of thousands of people in the region," MSF said. In the past year, more than 22,000 people had been treated at the hospital and more than 5,900 surgeries performed.  "All that now remains of the three operating theaters, the ER and outpatient departments, and the intensive care unit are collapsed roofs, blackened walls, floors thick with dust, and twisted pieces of metal that were once beds or trolleys."
    Back in Washington, Huffington Post reported that there is growing support for an independent investigation among House Democrats. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) sent a letter, signed by fellow progressive caucus members, James McGovern (D-Ma.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.), to Obama urging that he accept an investigation by an independent body with no ties to the US. “Cooperating with a thorough investigation conducted by the United Nations or other independent body would send an important message to the world that the United States is unequivocally committed to the transparency and accountability required to ensure such a catastrophic event does not happen again,” he wrote. John Garamendi (D-Calif.), a signer of Ellison's letter, is also circulating a letter to Carter calling for an Pentagon IG investigation. “The Department of Defense may not be able to fully disclose the sensitive details of operations in Afghanistan to a third party, leaving that investigation without critical insight,” Garamendi wrote. “Without clear rules for interaction and without a full understanding of American military operations, I fear that an international investigation alone could draw poorly-supported and unfair conclusions about the actions of our servicemembers.”
    Daniel Rothernberg,  co-director of Arizona State University’s Center on the Future of War, in a  published in a commentary in Defense One, makes the distinction between acts committed under the laws of war, or the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) as the US military calls it, and larger questions about the legitimacy and efficacy of US policy and strategy. The US military actually takes the laws of war quite seriously but this is often confused with the broader policy questions. "So, at the same time as the post-9/11 conflicts have led to devastating civilian consequences in Afghanistan (over 26,000 killed) and Iraq (at least 150,000 killed, over 4 million displaced), the U.S. military has taken seriously its legal commitment to protecting civilians in its operations," Rotherberg writes (It seems to me that the civilian death rates are much higher, specially in Iraq, when the second and third order effects of the policies of collapsing institutional infrastructure of what were functioning--even if only barel--–states is taken into account). The key point, Rothernberg writes, "is that U.S. adherence to LOAC is not the same as the broad-based impact of nearly a decade and a half of major foreign military operations."
    "One concrete way to address this situation would be for the U.S. military to cooperate openly and fully with an independent investigation of the attack, not as a public relations measure, but as a clear expression of the seriousness of its commitment to the rule of law," Rothenberg concludes.
    Gen. John Campbell, the US/NATO commander in Afghanistan, announced, on Oct. 24, that  U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William Hickman and two brigadier generals--Brig. Gen. Robert Armfield, USAF and Birg. Gen. Sean Jenkins, USA--had been appointed from outside the NATO command (They're all from US Central Command) to run the investigation of the US bombing of the MSF hospital in Kunduz. "We will be forthright and transparent and we will hold ourselves accountable for any mistakes made," Campbell said in a statement. "While we desire the investigation to be timely, what's most important is that it be done thoroughly and correctly."
    Also on Saturday, the Operation Resolute Support coalition announced that yes, indeed, civilians were killed in the attack. "The Combined Civilian Casualty Assessment Team determined that the reports of civilian casualties were credible, and we continue to work with the government of Afghanistan to fully identify the victims," Resolute Support spokesman Brig. Gen. Wilson Shoffner said in a statement.
    This morning, Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis confirmed that the CCAT investigation was taking longer than initially expected because the team is trying to both determine how many people were killed in the attack and who they were.

US Bombing Of Kunduz Hospital Looks More Like a War Crime Each Day by Willy B

Note: This is my first post on this blog. Col. Lang recently very kindly invited me to be a guest author and while I don't know that I'm up to the standards of this august group, I hope to learn much from your comments and encouragement.

            

Information is starting to appear that suggests that elements of the US military knew that the Doctors Without Borders (also known as MSF, its French initials) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan was, indeed, a hospital, and therefore not a legitimate target and despite that, the US bombed it anyway. The Pentagon is sitting on some of the most crucial information, however, citing the allegedly ongoing investigation, so many questions remain to be answered, but enough information on what happened has leaked out into the public domain that suggests that a criminal act may have been committed, an act that killed 22 people, including 12 hospital staffers, when the hospital was bombed by a US aircraft on Oct. 3.

 

 - The Attack Was Anything But Random -

 

          On October 13, Vice News, relying on knowledgeable sources and a US Air Force doctrine document on targeting, reported  that the attack was anything but random. "The airstrike on the hospital was not just a spur-of-the-moment decision; rather, it was the end product of detailed planning and coordination," Vice News reports, which then provides a description of the targeting process based on the doctrine document to include the provision of a "no strike" list, which lists all of those objects which are exempt from attack, including hospitals. The targeting process always includes a determination of the legality of the target and requires commanders to take steps to "avoid excessive incidental civilian casualties and damage to civilian property." It is fairly likely, Vice concludes, that a US military lawyer signed off on the Kunduz attack. Gen. Campbell, the US commander in Afghanistan, has testified that there was a ground controller in the vicinity and that he was talking to the AC-130 crew, which, itself, would have been fully briefed on the situation, before even leaving the ground, including the presence of any such prohibited targets.

 

- US Intelligence Knew It Was a Hospital -

 

          An Associated Press story  that first appeared on Oct. 15 reported that special operations intelligence analysts, in the days before the hospital was bombed, were investigating an alleged Pakistani intelligence services operative who may have been working for the Taliban from inside the hospital. The special operations analysts, AP reports, had assembled a dossier that included maps with the hospital circled, along with indications that intelligence agencies were tracking the location of the Pakistani operative and activity reports based on overhead surveillance, according to a former intelligence official who is familiar with some of the documents describing the site. The intelligence suggested the hospital was being used as a Taliban command and control center and may have housed heavy weapons. No evidence has surfaced indicating that there was, indeed, a Pakistani agent inside the hospital--MSF denies that there were any Pakistanis on its staff–-but whether it is true or not, US military intelligence clearly knew that the facility was a hospital. It is not clear, however, whether or not the AC-130 gunship crew that carried out the attack that night was informed of the intelligence on the hospital.        

 

- Repeated Attacks -

 

          MSF officials have said that hospital was hit five times over the period of an hour, and that they could hear the attacking aircraft circling overhead. Aircrews, AP goes on to report, would typically fly with maps showing the protected sites, and if that protection is violated by the adversary, there are procedures in place to minimize civilian casualties, procedures that were apparently not applied.  What the new details suggest "is that the hospital was intentionally targeted, killing at least 22 patients and MSF staff," said  Meinie Nicolai, president of MSF's operational directorate. "This would amount to a premeditated massacre. …" MSF also insists that there was no firefight in the area and that it was a calm night, contrary to what Gen. John Campbell, the US commander in Afghanistan, testifed to the US Congress a week-and-a-half ago. MSF admits treating Taliban fighters at the hospital but they say that no weapons were allowed in and there were no weapons in the hospital that night.

          Even if it was an accident, Obama's apology is not nearly enough for MSF. "We are still in the dark about why a well-known hospital full of patients and medical staff was repeatedly bombarded for more than an hour," said Dr. Joanne Liu, president of MSF told the New York Times. "We need to understand what happened and why." Françoise Bouchet-Saulnier, an MSF legal director, added that "Even behind a mistake, there is still a potential violation of humanitarian law that may amount to a war crime."

 

- US Acting To Destroy Evidence? -

 

          On Oct. 15, an armored vehicle carrying members of the US-Afghan-NATO investigation team forced its way into the hospital compound. The hospital is no longer being used by MSF but an MSF team was visiting the facility at the time. "The unannounced and forced entry damaged the gate to the property, potentially destroyed evidence, and caused stress and fear for the MSF team that had arrived earlier in the day to visit the hospital," MSF said in an Oct. 16 statement . "This occurred despite an agreement made between MSF and the joint investigation team that MSF would be provided advance notice before each step of the process involving the MSF's personnel and assets." The Huffington Post reported  that the incursion suggests that the government probes may be heavy-handed and ineffective, trampling on the aid organization's rights and, perhaps, on clues that remain at the site of the bombing. "The organization's push for an independent inquiry may gain traction now that it appears that the government investigations involve sending over armored vehicles unannounced."

         

- It Looks Like a War Crime -

 

          MSF continues to maintain its original charge that the US military bombed its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan deliberately. At the same time, anonymous Pentagon sources, told CNN that MSF did, indeed, doing everything right to alert the US that it was operating in Kunduz, which had been taken over by the Taliban some days before the Cotober 3 bombing incident.

          Christopher Stokes, general director of MSF, told the Associated Press in an interview in the ruined remains of the facility that the precise nature of the attack casts doubts on the US assertions that it was a mistake. "The hospital was repeatedly hit both at the front and the rear and extensively destroyed and damaged, even though we have provided all the coordinates and all the right information to all the parties in the conflict," he said. "The extensive, quite precise destruction of this hospital ... doesn't indicate a mistake. The hospital was repeatedly hit." The attack went on for an hour despite repeated calls to the US military telling them they were hitting a hospital. Stokes told the AP that that MSF wanted a "clear explanation because all indications point to a grave breach of international humanitarian law, and therefore a war crime."

          Anonymous  sources within the Pentagon, meanwhile, confirmed to CNN, that MSF did, indeed, do everything right. The US government was well aware that the facility was a hospital but, according to CNN's sources, that information did not get to the correct military personnel. One of the sources said that MSF "did everything right in informing us." The location of the hospital "was in the military database" of restricted sites such as hospitals, mosques and schools that U.S. pilots are not allowed to strike even if insurgents are present. There had been reports of Taliban at the hospital, but that does not override the rules of engagement or the fact that as a hospital, it was a protected target, CNN's sources said.

 

- Survivors Contradict Official Accounts of Kunduz Hospital Attack -

 

          Afghanistan's acting defense minister, Masoom Stanekzai, went so far as to defend the attack. In comments to the Associated Press, yesterday, he claimed that there were Taliban and Pakistani operatives in the hospital and that a Taliban flag had been painted onto the walls of the compound. "That was a place they wanted to use as a safe place because everybody knows that our security forces and international security forces were very careful not to do anything with a hospital," he said. Stanekzai further claimed that the Afghan government had evidence that Taliban and Pakistani ISIS operatives were communicating from the hospital to command centers in Pakistan, as if this justifies the attack.

          Eyewitnesses and survivors interviewed, last week, by Andrew Quilty of {Foreign Policy} magazine completely contradicted Stanekzai's claims, however. A mullah who was the brother of a patient who was killed in the attack and two others, all of whom asked not to be named, all said that the MSF staff did not allow any weapons into the facility, a ban that the Taliban actually respected, and that the fighting in the city that night never got closer to the hospital than about 200 yards.

          Whether or not Taliban forces were in the hospital, attacking such a facility is totally contrary to internationally accepted war practices, and in fact constitutes a war crime, as MSF and others have rightly stated.

 

 

Policy in Afghanistan - First Published 29 April 2009

 

 

 

 

 

This piece published six years ago on SST is an appropriate response to President Obama's renewed foolishness about Afghanistan.  pl

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I have been asked to "put up or shut up" about Afghanistan. In other words, I have been asked to make clear my views on an appropriate US policy for Afghanistan.  I thought I had done that, but, no matter.

I think that we Americans need to stop exagerating the level of threat to the United States that originates or will originate in Afghanistan.  The temptation to see the activities and scheming of takfiri jihadis as parts of a world war between the Islamic "House of War" and the rest of us has caused us to begin to re-design our society(ies) for total war against an all powerful and virtually eternal enemy.  This is nonsense.  Islam, Islamdom, and Islamicate Civilization are much given, as are other such cultural constructs, to revivalism in a pattern that recurs over centuries as memory of the costs of each revival fades from the living collective mind.  The present phenomenon of Islamic zealotry is not something new.  It is something old come again.  This wave of revivalism has peaked and will decline under the pressure of local government and religious establishments, foreign military intervention and the competition presented by other forms of Islam, each with its claim to universal authenticity and its own circle of adherents. 

 

Afghan Buzkashi (FB Ali)

Buzkashi is an ancient Central Asian game in which two teams on horseback seek to drag a goat carcass (often headless) across a field to a marked circle or goal line. A very rough game, it is also played in Afghanistan.

Something like Buzkashi is currently going on in Afghanistan, with not one but several teams pitted against each other. Instead of the carcass of a goat, the teams are fighting over the country, and its future within the broader regional context.

The game started in 1979 with the Soviet invasion, and has continued ever since, with the 'goat' in the possession of one team or the other. After the US-supported Mujahideen forced a Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the regime they left behind lasted for about 3 years, to be followed by a vicious civil war, centred on Kabul, between the various Mujahideen commanders and warlords. This was ended by the Taliban in 1996 when, with clandestine Pakistani support, they established control over most of the country (taking over the rest in the next two years).

The US invasion in 2001 (after the 9/11 attacks) involved a massive aerial assault under which the forces of the Northern Alliance moved on Kabul and the South. This shattered the Taliban's forces and administration, and within a few days they were completely defeated. Their troops and cadres scattered, most of them seeking refuge in their villages and homes, with a few escaping to Pakistan.

Celebrations, Remembrance, and Repentance by Origin

 

Celebration--

Sunday evening, I was both moved and angered by the Lockheed-Martin Production of the National Memorial Day Concert.  Prominently among the dignitaries sat Colin Powell as an honored guest and pontificator. The show was broadcast on Sunday evening prime time, not even on Memorial Day itself.  Sadly, it had the tone of an infomercial. http://video.pbs.org/video/2365477756/

The musical interludes of the show were interspersed with segments showing the heroic actions of veterans who are striving to overcome the wounds exacted on them by the lies of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell and their sycophants.  While it is quite important for all of us to recognize and be aware of the sacrifices given, the vignettes of the wounded and lost screamed to evoke pity and had the cheap tone of a picture of a thin, crying child in a feed-the-poor-starving children ad.  The production included subtle and heavy advertising for its commercial sponsors glorifying the war machine.  The whole production had a lack of seriousness of tone that substituted an understanding of the gravity and tragedy of war for rosy patriotic feel-good.

How the producers of the “celebration” could sit one of the authors of their injuries, Colin Powell, there on national television as a featured presenter is an act as cynical and corrupt as can be imagined.  http://video.pbs.org/video/2365478624/ 

Powell did not apologize for his participation in the lies that killed so many.  

After watching the show, I felt I had participated in a cheap, dishonorable experience.  A requiem would have been more appropriate.

Remembrance—

On Memorial Day, I always think about a military casualty in my family, my first cousin Larry, a year older than I.  In 1967, instead of going on to college, Larry enlisted in the Navy.  Larry served continuously until June 1995 when he died of mesothelioma on active duty sick leave with the rank of Senior Chief Petty Officer.  Larry served his career in the asbestos filled bowels of numerous engine rooms.  His last posting was at Guantanamo where he instructed new sailors on how to run a ship’s engines.  He loved his time in the Navy.  Larry gave his all to the country, including loss of his family and contact with his child in a divorce due to long separations on cruises and his life cut short.

Every Memorial Days, we should also remember those who did not die in battle or as a result of battle, but who died because of the industrial hazards of running a military.  They served as assigned and did their jobs loyally, without any glory.  We must honor them.

Repentance—

On this day, not only should we celebrate the gift from those who served, we should also seek repentance as a nation for the mistakes made that we, as a People, allowed and encouraged.  We should repent for allowing asbestos and other carcinogenic substances, burn pits, and radioactive ammunition to imperil our service members because of budgetary restraints.  We should repent for assigning terrible officers like the Lt. Colonel of the “B” 2/5 Cavalry at Ap Bu Nho described in Col. Lang's post yesterday.

Most of all, at this moment in our history, we as a nation should repent for the Iraq invasion, a war based in knowing deception and national hubris.  We should not let the Lockheed-Martins of the world engulf us in a false patriotism that omits the moral culpability of our actions abroad.

The Iraq invasion was no intelligence failure.  Instead, known fake intelligence was used to deceive the American People to believe that they were mortally threatened when they were not and to believe they were attacking a regime responsible for 9-11 when they were not. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/text-of-president-bushs-speech-07-10-2002/ http://web.archive.org/web/20060514140012/http://www.house.gov/reform/min/pdfs_108_2/pdfs_inves/pdf_admin_iraq_on_the_record_rep.pdf http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/03/18/911-and-iraq-the-wars-greatest-lie/ http://themoderatevoice.com/121921/ten-years-later-belief-in-iraq-connection-with-911-attack-persists/

The consequences flowing from these lies and our national failure to discern that our leaders were liars in time to stop their perfidy has had, and will continue to have, terrible consequences.  Until We the People can come to grips with our failures in Iraq, we cannot begin to correct the errors of our belief in our exceptionalism.  That belief will destroy US if we do not moderate it.

Instead of sitting as an honored guest last night, Colin Powel should be sitting in ashes and sackcloth before the alter of some church in repentance for the evil he has brought into the world by his knowing participation in the greatest lie ever perpetrated on the American People.  Powell, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and the others should be shunned and dishonored until they acknowledge and repent of their crimes against the nation and the world.  Yet, those and many others who acted in concert with them still are not brought to any accountability for their actions that have harmed so many.  It is like the infomercial for US last night, we enjoy the pomp of the cynically choreographed ceremony on the Capitol steps and steadfastly ignore the circumstance of the disaster that is Iraq.  Until we, here in the U.S., can stand as a nation knowing and admitting our moral failure, we cannot fix the problem.  Repentance is central to redemption.

As a part of our Memorial Day celebrations, we should add a ceremony of national repentance for the damage we, the American People, have allowed to be inflicted upon millions in this New American Century so that we do not commit the same crimes again.

Afghanistan - a live fire training area for your grandchildren?

"While the opportunities to build peace and stability have never been greater, a new ecology of terror threatens to block not just our prosperity but yours as well. Localized insurgencies and external enablers have evolved into existential threats to states. In parts of the Middle East, extremism has taken a violent form. To the east, Pakistan's military operations are pushing a number of terrorist networks into our territory. Narcotics provide deadly criminal networks with the weapons and money to attract new recruits from around the world. We are determined to fight this scourge."  Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah

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Until BHO tied himself into knots by listening excessively to the kaganesque neocons and their Petraeuslike disciples, I favored the idea of a long term US garrison in Afghanistan that would as a minimum keep Kabul in government hands and that would enable the US + friends to keep the AQ type groups off balance in the country.

A force like that would IMO have amounted to around 20,000 including; conventional troops to hold bases and towns, SOF troops to chase the guerrillas, aviation assets for fire support and logistics, support and headquarters.

In 2009 Obama decided to adopt the COIN concept in Afghanistan with a view to revolution in Afghan society to make it a modern heavily western influenced country.  To that end, a vast amount of money was lavished on development efforts and a very large coalition force sought to pacify the whole country.

 All of that failed.

"Everything old is new again." Now the failed COIN war is to be continued indefinitely under conditions, and with resources and missions  that I once favored, but do not now.

Why?  Why?

Too much blood has been spilt.  Too much money has been thrown away, money that could have been used for; medical research, space exploration, infrastructure rebuild, etc.  There has been too much grief for too long.  This big war has continued for too long. the possibility of what could have been done with small numbers of willing professionals is now buried as a viable concept under all that has gone before.

Ghani hopes that we Americans will decide to accept a more or less permanent fighting presence in his desolate wasteland of a country. he hopes that this presence will hold the geographical expression that is Afghanistan together in the semblance of a real country.

One can only hope that the USA will eventually decide we are not suitable successors to the empire that maintained the soldiers that Kipling wrote of.

We can then just say to hell with it and leave.  pl  

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2015/03/afghanistan_is_positioning_its.html

Army major stripped of Silver Star

"... if the Army truly does believe that Golsteyn violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, then they should charge him with a crime. If they can’t do that, then we must conclude that insufficient evidence of a crime exists, in which case Secretary McHugh should give him the Distinguished Service Cross he deserves.

Congressman Hunter pointed out in his article that a recent survey conducted by the Military Timesrevealed only 27 percent of the military felt that their leaders were looking out for the best interests of the troops. Golsteyn’s situation illustrates why this is the case, and is of a piece with the case of Will Swenson, whose Medal of Honor package was “lost” after he bitterly criticized his chain of command over the ROEs, or of Jim Gant, one of the most successful special operators of the last decade, who was nonetheless drummed out of the Army after running afoul of his superiors.

Golsteyn, Swenson, Gant, and others like them are led by men who interrupt their political intrigues and email flirtations with wealthy socialites only to crucify the troops actually doing the fighting when, for whatever reason, they become politically inconvenient—preferably, as with Golsteyn, in a manner that allows for no response or appeal.  Freebeacon

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The US military is now ruled by men and women who have the mentality and character of "big box" chain store managers at your local mall.  

The number of them who are selfless servants of the Republic is small.  We used to have general officers who were real soldiers.  What happened?  Careerism and mirror imaging in promotions happened. There are a few good ones around.  LTG McMaster is an example but he was passed over for BG at least once and was finally promoted because wise people in the civilian world intervened at the White House.  What was his "crime?"  He argued with the top brass over strategy in the Iraq War.  This was after he had commanded an armored cavalry regiment with great distinction at Tel Afar.  He may not remember this now.  

We have fallen a very long way from the days when George Marshall fired generals by the dozen if they tried to avoid hard duty.  Marshall was also in the habit of giving GIs a ride in his staff car on the way to the Pentagon from his quarters at Ft. Myer.   And then there was Ridgeway who was standing by the side of the road  one day in Korea when a passing heavily burdened infantry soldier  called out to his comrades to ask if any of them would tie his boot lace.  This four star general knelt in the mud to do the job.

We have fallen a long way.  pl  

http://freebeacon.com/national-security/afghanistan-war-hero-stripped-of-silver-star/

 

 

Afghanistan: how long until collapse?

(The Purple Assed Mandrill of Peace speaks again)

Afghanistan as presently configured by the US, has 200,000 men under arms.  This costs about $11.6 billion.  Afghanistan's GDP is about $45 billion.  A lot of that is created by massive foreign aid driven projects.  The country's biggest cash crop and foreign exchange earner is opium poppies.  The army and police lost over 4,000 killed this year, a year admittied to be the bloodiest in a long time.  Do the arithmetic, folks, do the arithmetic.

Barry McCaffery was on the tube this AM explaining to ayman muhi ad-din (nobody can pronounce his name) that the great danger for the present government of Afghanistan is that the US Congress will become bored with the whole project and cancel future assistance to that distant and miserable land.   McCaffery said that would result in "immediate civil war and collapse."  He is absolutely right.

The US Congress cut off aid to South Vietnam in 1975 and that is what happened.  We are going to see a re-run. pl

ME/Afghan Potpourri - 29 November 2014

"... officials want to lessen the risk that U.S.-trained fighters sent back into Syria to combat the Islamic State will use their weapons on civilians or — like the Afghan mujahideen fighters Washington backed in the 1980s — later turn against the United States and its allies.

Under the plan, which has not been finalized, “moderate” fighters will be evaluated on an ongoing basis. Successful participants would gradually attain access to higher levels of training and weaponry, and fighters found to be wanting would be dismissed from the program.

“We’re taking it extremely seriously,” a senior U.S. defense official said. He said fighters will also be educated about the laws of armed conflict."  Washpost 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-military-will-use-psych-evals-stress-tests-to-screen-syrian-rebels-for-training/2014/11/28/39bb9362-7712-11e4-bd1b-03009bd3e984_story.html

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This is a good idea that probably won't work very well.  CENTCOM thinks it can "screen" potential "surrogate fighters" en masse well enough to keep them from doing what they please once turned loose in Syria?  Good luck!!  Every single one of the people they will deal with will have his own agenda and they will all be willing to tell the screeners whatever they think is necessary to be armed and trained.  In HUMINT ops, COIN ops and UW ops I have been involved in doing much the same kind of screening and the outcome was always "dicey" and very dependent on the subjective judgment and skill of the screener.  At the beginning of the US occupation of Iraq an industrial psychologist was hired to vett prospective Iraqi policemen.  He  devised a questionnaire to administer to the candidates to determine their suitability.  He asked me to read it and to give an opinion.  I told him that this test would be disastrous.  "Why?" he asked.  l told him that the testees would lie to get what they wanted.  He professed to find that hard to believe.  I told him he needed to meet more people in the ME.  His test produced the police Shia death squads.  pl

***************

 "An Egyptian court on Saturday removed all remaining charges against former President Hosni Mubarak, raising the possibility that Mr. Mubarak could go free for the first time since he was removed from office in the 2011 uprising that defined the Arab Spring.

During earlier hearings in the various proceedings against Mr. Mubarak human rights lawyers demanded harsh punishment for his three decades of brutal autocracy, but Saturday’s court session was packed with Mubarak supporters who erupted in cheers at the verdict."  NY Times

 http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/world/hosni-mubarak-charges-dismissed-by-egyptian-court.html?_r=0

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I love the ME.  The more things change the more they remain the same.   He'll be out shortly and anyone in Egypt with any brains at all will be very subdued in commenting on the court's "mercy."  At the time of the revolting Arab Revoltings I told Yussuf al-Misri that after a short delay there would come to be a struggle between the salafists (MB, etc.) and the Army and that the Army would win.  And lo, this has come to pass.  My old friend 'Umar Suleiman would have a good laugh.  BTW, he despised Mubarak.   pl

***************

"Eyewitnesses say militants have launched an attack on a foreign guesthouse near parliament in the Afghan capital of Kabul.The Taliban  immediately claimed responsibility for the attack Saturday on the guesthouse, home to Europeans working for the Afghan government.Police officials had no immediate comment. Eyewitnesses told The Associated Press  that suicide bombers and gunmen were taking part in the assault.The attack comes amid a series of deadly assaults in the capital targeting foreigners amid the withdrawal of most NATO  troops by the end of the year.

 http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/World/2014/Nov-29/279352-taliban-raid-foreign-guesthouse-in-afghan-capital.ashx?utm_medium=email&utm_source=transactional&utm_campaign=Newsletter#sthash.a9qenmgf.dpuf

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Ah, yes, tell me again how grand life will be in Kabul in the next few years.  pl

Yup, kings in Kaffiristan.

"Mr. Obama’s decision largely extends much of the current American military role for another year. Mr. Obama and his aides were forced to make a decision because the 13-year old mission, Operation Enduring Freedom, is set to end on Dec. 31.

The matter of the military’s role in Afghanistan in 2015 has “been a really, really contentious issue for a long time, even more contentious than troop numbers,” said Vikram Singh, who worked on Afghanistan policy both at the State Department and the Pentagon during the Obama administration and is now at the Center for American Progress in Washington.

American officials said that while the debate over the nature of the American military’s role beginning in 2015 has lasted for years, two issues in particular have shifted the debate in recent months.

The first is the advance of Islamic State forces across northern Iraq and the collapse of the Iraqi Army, which has led to criticism of Mr. Obama for a military pullout of Iraq that left Iraqi troops ill-prepared to protect their soil."  NY Times

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This guy (Obama) is low hanging fruit for the generals.  They rolled him for the surge in Afghanistan and now they are doing it again.   Stay tuned as they continue to press him for gradual increases in mission and numbers. 

As the Times states they can't stand the thought that the client state in Kabul will fall apart as the one in Baghdad did this year.  They will do anything to preent that.

Obama is very vulnerable and increasingly desperate and will become more so.  It's anyone's guess what he will do if the rest of Ramadi falls to IS.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/us/politics/in-secret-obama-extends-us-role-in-afghan-combat.html?_r=1 

Mr. Obama’s decision largely extends much of the current American military role for another year. Mr. Obama and his aides were forced to make a decision because the 13-year old mission, Operation Enduring Freedom, is set to end on Dec. 31.  NY Times

 

 

Afghanistan continues to "drink" US money

"Sopko leads the office responsible for tracking down waste, fraud, and abuse in U.S.-backed projects and helping to reclaim misused taxpayer dollars.The United States has allocated more than $104 billion for reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, and President Obama's fiscal 2015 budget would add an additional $5.8 billion.

Despite the best intentions of the U.S. government, Sopko said that it has helped increase corruption. He pointed to large, rapid investments from the United States and a lack of planning about how Afghanistan would sustain U.S.-led projects.

"They can't afford the government we've given them," he said. "If you go over there, it's like Disneyland, what we bought for them.... It isn't working if you approach reconstruction that way."'  NJ

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Both the Bush and Obama Administrations have turned a blind eye to US/Afghan money corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Huge consulting contracts for development business advising were given to K Street lobbying firms that grew new subsidiaries built for the sole purpose of delivering money to the US participants.  Many of the people involved in such schemes then formed personal partnerships with Afghans whose fathers, uncles, etc.  were central figures in the Karzai government.  This corruption was driven from the top. This continues.  pl  

http://www.nationaljournal.com/defense/ig-corruption-in-afghanistan-getting-significantly-worse-20141118?ref=early_bird

Related articles

Corruption in Afghanistan Is Getting 'Significantly Worse'

Stolterberg? He should stay on his meds.

"NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Thursday reaffirmed the alliance's commitment to stabilizing Afghanistan and ensuring that the gains made are preserved after the foreign combat mission ends in 2014.

Afghan security forces have been largely left to fight the Taliban on their own this year, in their first real test since the militant Islamists were ousted from power in 2001 by U.S.-led forces.

Government forces hold cities and towns and district centers have also largely held out but police and army casualties have been described as "unsustainable" and the Taliban have regained territory in strategic provinces where they have resumed the role of de facto government."  Reuters

***************

"Afghan forces are dying at an unsustainable rate on the battlefield, a senior U.S. commander said Wednesday , in a troubling sign ahead of the departure of most U.S. and NATO troops by the end of this year.

Lt. Gen. Joseph Anderson, a senior commander for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said 4,634 members of Afghanistan’s police and army have been killed in action this year. That is already an increase from the total for 2013, when 4,350 members died in the line of duty.

“This is not sustainable,” he told reporters in a video briefing from Afghanistan.""  Washpost

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The Taliban are once again governing large parts of Afghanistan.  The Afghan armed forces cost about 25% of Afghan GDP.  Most of that military budget money comes from the US.  Lucky us!  There are 195,000 people in their armed forces.

Now we learn from this man Anderson that KIA losses are so high that they are "unsustainable."

Excuse me?  What is it that we think we are doing there?  pl  

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/11/06/us-afghanistan-nato-idUSKBN0IQ18220141106

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/afghan-forces-casualties-not-sustainable-us-commander-says/2014/11/05/a3df595a-6514-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

IS/Coalition War Game - Move 3b - Summary of Game Situation as of 4 July, 2015

By the 4th of July, 2015:

NW Syria Front.

SAR forces have consolidated control over Aleppo and are re-occupying border posts to the north and west of the city.  IS forces have withdrawn to the NE of Aleppo under severe pressure from SAR ground forces as well as SAR air force and US combat aviation.  The US continues to deny the obvious tacit cooperation with Syria,

KAR Front.

PM forces with support from both the US and Iran have advanced to positions in which they control Kurdish populated  areas in Iraq.  The KAR government states that it does not intend to advance further into IS controlled areas.  The KAR government does not believe that it has the strength that would be needed to retake Mosul.  There has been a large scale evacuation of Kurds from all the areas of northern Iraq.  These Kurds are fleeing into the KAR.  The KAR government states that it will not attempt to take any action in Syrian Kurdistan but that refugees who make their way to the KAR will be welcomed.  Delivieries of US supplied equipment to the KAR continue through Iranian ports and are tranported to Suleimaniya by Iranian transport.  Obama Administration efforts to bring 1 USSFGA de facto liaison to an end have failed.  There have been several instances of violent confrontation between CIA and Green Berets over this issue.

Anbar/Baghdad Front.

The Iraqi/Abadi government "suspended" most governmental functions  in Baghdad as of 1 May 2015.  The government is moving to Nasiriya far to the south.  In response, the US Embassy has largely abandoned its compound on the west bank of the Tigris and is moving to co-locate with the government at Nasiriya.    Some US military functions continue at the former embassy.  AH64 Apaches are operating from within the compound.  A battalion of USMC have been airlifted into the embassy compound to join the battalion + already on the scene.  BIA is entirely in the hands of IS.    All of Anbar is under IS control.

Jordan Front.

 Jordanian Army has deployed to combat ready positions in the north and around Ma'an in the south.  There is now a combined division sized armored task force in position at Azraq Air base in eastern Jordan.  TF  Hashemi consists of two US Stryker brigades, a French light armored brigade, and the Jordanian 40th Armored Brigade.  TF is OPCON to Jordanian Army.  A prince of the royal house is in nominal command.

 

IS/Coalition War Game - Move 3 - Forecast of events until 4 July 2015

Summary of events in game world/game time from 5 November 2014 to 1 March, 2015.

Kobane Front.

In spite of increased US air support Kobane was totally in IS hands by 15 November.   Several thousand residents fled across the border into Turkey before the end came.  Over the next several weeks IS staged several execution dramas for the TV cameras waiting on the hillside across the border from the city.   The UN estimates the number of executed to be more than 5,000.  IS has kept several more thousand residents alive and display them on roof tops for the benefit of US air reconnaissance. This has effectively stopped US air attacks on the city.  IS forces previously concentrated in the action at Kobane have moved to other positions along the border or to the Aleppo area.  Kurdish rioting has built steadily in Turkey since the fall of Kobane.  These riots have been put down with severity by the Erdogan government's police.  There have been numerous instances of intercommunal conflict across Turkey between ethnic Turks and Kurds.

Aleppo front.

SAR forces completed encirclement of Aleppo before the end of the battle at Kobane.   IS forces returning to Aleppo have repeatedly tried to break the Syrian lines of circumvellation but have failed in spite of heavy employment of suicide truck bombers as part of their fire plans for attacks.  Syrian and US air attacks are occurring in close proximity to each other against much the same IS forces who are trying to break the SAR siege.

Turkish Front.

In December, Turkey announced its revocation of permission for the French Navy carrier battle group's presence in the Black Sea as well as for over flight clearance for anti-IS air operations in Iraq.  Turkey stressed that emergency landing rights for damaged French aircraft would still be available at Batman.  France withdrew from the Black Sea in January re-positioning the battle group in the Mediterranean Sea NE of Cyprus where it began air operations against targets in northern Iraq.  Syria's foreign minister expressed satisfaction with that as well as blanket overflight clearance for French aircraft from the De Gaulle to and from Iraq.  Syria also offered to exchange IFF codes with France to prevent accidental engagements.  It is believed that France responded favorably to the offer.  In February a group of active and retired senior Turkish Army officers attempted to depose Erdogan's government.  The attempt failed when Turkish Jandarma units loyal to Erdogan blocked the attempt of a Turkish Army brigade to occupy the capital, Ankara.  The brigade has been disbanded and many of its officers and soldiers arrested and held for trial for treason and mutiny.  The generals and colonels who instigated the coup attempt have fled into hiding within Turkey.  The government accuses the Army of hiding them within Turkish Army cantonments.  In March Erdogan allowed IS to open two more consulates.  One is in Antakya and the other in Erzerum.  This action and the cancellation of the waiver for France in the Black Sea has caused backchannel discussions in NATO of the possibility of expelling Turkey from NATO. Russia has made it clear that it would not veto a resolution condemning Turkey in the Security Council so long as the resolution includes economic sanctions.  China has not expressed an opinion with regard to such a resolution.  Ambassador Samantha Power has made a public statement that the US opposes such a resolution.

Kurdish Front.

Covert and unacknowledged US/Iranian cooperation has continued in building up the Pesh Merga. US aircraft are now operating in significant numbers from KAR airfields.  Equipment and supplies are now arriving with Iranian cooperation in overland deliveries from Gulf ports.  These deliveries have enabled a steady build up in PM capabilities.   The KAR government has made it clear that it has no interest in advancing its forces beyond what it considers to be authentically Kurdish territory.  The KAR government has made it clear that it will not attempt to relieve Baghdad or any other area under Iraqi covernment control if such operations endanger Kurdish forces.

 

Afghanistan, Iraq and the Reverend Al

The Reverend Al (Tawana) Sharpton is helping Obama choose a new AG.  I expect that there will be a recess appointment that will carry through to the end of Obama's term.  IMO the woman AG of Calfornia would be Obama's first choice.  She is far enough to the left for his taste and that of Michele.

The Afghan government is dead flat broke.  This is to be expected since the government has little in the way of "organic" home grown income.  The huge armed forces and police are 90% funded by direct US government subventions.  The Afghan government is yet another ghostly apparition masquerading as a real government.  It will either disappear when the US stops funding it or find another sponsor, China, maybe?

At the same time the Afghan government is losing ground steadily to the Taliban in both eastern Afghanistan and SW of the capital.  There are now fighters carrying IS's flag.  They have beheaded quite a few captives to demonstrate their fealty to the Caliph Ibrahim.  Tell me again what it is that we think we are doing in Afghanistan.

In Iraq there are no incumbents for the posts of Minister for Defense and Interior (police).  Farid Zakariya had guts enough today to say that the meme recited by the Children's Crusade that there is now an inclusive government is simply a lie.  He is correct.  He should be careful.  Someone is hunting his scalp in Washington and New York.  pl 

http://www.afghanistannewscenter.com/news/2014/september/sep262014.html#a7

Too many moving parts, too many

It is axiomatic in the planning "bidness" that a good plan is as simple as possible.  Any well done plan is set within a "universe" of assumptions concerning the situation in which the plan is viable or even needed.  For that reason there must exist among the planners a clear and valid understanding of the environment in which the plan will be executed.  I do not see that lucidity of thought in the Obama government

The various tasks assigned by a plan must be capable of accomplishment and they must not be mutually interfering, i.e., they must not block each other as they are performed.  The tasks in a plan are colloquially referred to by planners as "moving parts." Another planning axiom holds that the more moving parts there are in a plan, the more probable is failure in execution.  

Obama appears to have a mass of moving parts in his campaign plan:

- The plan assumes that Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey can be made into active supporters of an anti-IS "war."  Qatar and Saudi Arabia were the only Wahhabi dominated states until IS proclaimed its caliphal status.  These two countries are deeply sympathetic to IS' goals if not its methods.  Both Qatar and Saudi Arabia were instrumental in the early stages of development of IS as it morphed from AQ Iraq, into the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and then to a final glory as IS.  Do we really think it will be easy to enlist Qatar and Saudi Arabia in this fight?  Do we really think that these deeply Sunni states are going to support continued Shia governance from Baghdad?

 

Afghanistan, IS and Israel diary - 2 September 2014

"One must look at the order of battle, organization and military tactics of the Islamic State, which can be best described as a semi-military, semi-political body that wants to translate its day-by-day military gains into a long-lasting political body. To that end, IS fields generally motorized companies of 80 to 100 men or battalions with 200 to 300 fighters, skilled in urban warfare, high mobile and capable of executing terrorist tactics such as improvised explosive device attacks and hit-and-run attacks, as well as conventional military tactics at the company and battalion levels. I don’t agree with the view that IS a new offspring of al-Qaeda. IS is a new breed that has caused much confusion to international actors who can’t decide what to do against IS. We are facing an organization and a modus operandi we are not at all familiar with.

 

Afghan Green on Blue Attack

"An Afghan soldier shot a United States Army major general to death and wounded a German brigadier general and at least 14 other foreign and Afghan military service members on Tuesday at a military training academy on the outskirts of Kabul, officials of the American-led coalition said Tuesday. The major general appeared to be the highest-ranking member of the American military to die in hostilities overseas since the Vietnam War."  NY Times 

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This is mute commentary on how much Afghans have really changed.  (irony) This is clear in spite of the nonsense being spouted by Rear Admiral Kirby at the Pentagon.  pl

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/world/asia/afghanistan-attack.html?_r=0

Israel/Afghanistan diary - 30 July 2014

   

“Under those circumstances, Israel would potentially have to contend with tens of thousands of casualties, the paralysis of all its systems and the need to create defensive measures for individual neighborhoods and even for streets. And all of that is based on the assumption that West Bank Arabs and some the Israeli Arabs will not join the campaign. Counter-attacks by the air force won’t help when everyone is dug in deep underground, laughing all the way to Jerusalem.”

This horrific scenario that he so ardently etched in the consciousness of the Israeli masses justifies the killing of civilians in Gaza and the deaths of Israeli soldiers in battle. It ends with an apocalyptic prediction: “In the best-case scenario, international forces would be brought in to demilitarize the state,” the popular status update says, continuing, “Israel’s nuclear weapons and the whole dream of a Jewish state would disintegrate for another thousand years.” According to this article, the kidnapping and murder of the three teens paved the way for a military operation that resulted in the discovery of a “brilliant plan” to destroy Israel."  Akiva Eldar

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Hysteria and skillful use of IO has brought about this image in Israeli minds and the same bilge is being sold to American audiences by Zionist spokesmen like Steve Schmitt who mouthed this line on Morning Joe" yesterday.

In fact, what we are talking about in the actual, as opposed to the fantasy, combat situation is posession by Hamas of a mass of homemade artillery rockets that are wildly innacurate and that are easily defeated by the American funded "Iron Dome."  In addition, Hamas has some tunnels which penetrate as much as a mile into the Israeli desert and which can be used for raiding in Israel.

This is an existential threat?  Does the IDF not station troops in the desert near Gaza?  Do the Israelis in all their genius not posses Ground Penetrating Radar? No?  Well, the Americans can always give them the equipment and/or training or can provide them with the imagery. 

Natanyahu is smarter than to believe this silliness.  His real purpose is to destroy Hamas so that he can dominate the PA.  pl

Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/07/israel-protective-edge-right-left-support-avri-gilad.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+%5BEnglish%5D&utm_campaign=6f08e48c7b-July_29_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-6f08e48c7b-93066749#ixzz38sKpM42d

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"Vice President Cheney knew all along Saddam had zero nukes. His main interest was to establish a democracy in Iraq which he believed would have a rippled effect among Israel’s neighbors and provide the Jewish state with 25 years of peace and security. Given the bloody failures of Afghanistan and Iraq, President Obama is understandably gun-shy, reluctant to get more deeply involved in a geopolitical game he clearly does not understand.

John Kerry, his Secretary of State, while well-equipped intellectually for the job, showed yawning gaps of Middle Eastern knowledge, when he made 12 roundtrips to the Middle East in almost as many weeks — in the mistaken belief that Israel and Hamas in Gaza were ready for a Middle Eastern settlement."  De Borchgrave

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What is it with Cheney and Israel?  Rumors have circulated in Washington for years that he has some undisclosed family or other personal connection with the Zionist cause.  Is that what all this has been about?  Alternatively, does he harbor resentment against the "Aghabs" for slights received during his business years.  God knows it is easy to be offended by the behavior of a lot of Arabs in the business world. 

Kerry is an "Innocent Abroad."  He has been a striver with beautiful hair for a long time.  His vanity is apparent.  For such people it is easy to imagine that the irresistable charm of your manner gives you leverage in interpersonal relations that, unfortunately, does not exist.

The thought of John Kerry trying to cozy up to a hyper-nationalist fascist like Natanyahu is sadly amusing.  pl

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com  http://www.newsmax.com/ArnauddeBorchgrave/Afghanistan-Iraq-Iraq-in-Crisis/2014/07/29/id/585556#ixzz38xUGS9NH  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-penetrating_radar