Afghanistan outpost decision an insane strategy

[bigtree]

from Diana West at The Register-Mail: http://www.galesburg.com/opinions/x925448617/Diana-West-Outpost-decision-an-insane-strategy


Feb 17, 2010

Sorry, but this Washington Post headline -- "U.S. commanders in Afghanistan face tougher discipline for battlefield failures" -- misses the point.

The story concerns "failures" all right, but the three recently investigated incidents in question are not "battlefield" failures. No, these failures, whose names are Wanat, Ganjgal and Kamdesh, have their provenance in the climate-controlled conference rooms of the White House and the Pentagon. These are failures of U.S. military policy, and it is the top leadership of the current and last administrations, those who have formulated, approved and executed the policy, who are responsible for them -- not the mid-level officers, the squadron leader or battalion commander, who, according to the Post story on the unreleased investigations, will be taking the official fall.

I refer, of course, to the policy of "counterinsurgency" warfare, particularly as promoted by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the supreme infidel commander now waging a popularity contest against the Koranically correct Taliban for the affections of the Islamic peoples of Afghanistan. The prize, booby at best, is supposed to enable the United States, at Treasury-breaking and military-wrecking cost, to tame wild Afghanistan into a non-dysfunctional, jihad-free society. Our main weapons: "population-protection," cash and massive public works projects. (Sending troops so equipped into valleys of death like Wanat, Gankgal and Kamdesh is pure "counterinsurgency" negligence, I mean, doctrine.) The Taliban's main weapons: the Koran, jihad and Sharia. After eight-plus years, the Islamic peoples of Afghanistan still can't decide between us. Still, we keep trying, pursuing the unicorn of hearts and minds across Afghanistan even as the reality of Islamic law spreads unchecked across the West.

One place we tried too long is the Nuristan province village of Kamdesh. There, in August 2006, a foothold later known as Combat Outpost Keating was established on indefensibly low ground ringed by mountains as a Provincial Reconstruction Team. Whose criminally stupid idea was it to put an outpost there and leave it there? I doubt investigators asked.

The mission was "nation-building at a local level," as Salon's Matthew Cole reported in 2007. Under continual attack, however, the troops had switched from dispensing goodies to "simply securing the base" -- and for three, pointless years until Oct. 3, 2009. On that day, the battle of Kamdesh left eight Americans dead over a piece of real estate that -- and this is key -- the United States had already planned to abandon. Whose negligence delayed the evacuation? I don't think investigators asked that, either.


read more: http://www.galesburg.com/opinions/x925448617/Diana-West-Outpost-decision-an-insane-strategy

[mike_c]

1. viet-ghanistan all over again....

Too bad we can't ask the soviets for advice anymore. :rofl:

[Oregone]

2. What is the proper counterinsurgency strategy in a occupation/guerrilla war?

Seems like its all fail or fail harder, right?

[bigtree]

3. it's even more complex in Afghanistan

The mission, as defined by the president, is to erect (and maintain to their independence) a government and an army which can both defend itself and provide a buffer against the U.S. al-Qaeda nemesis next door. Yet most of what we are doing in Afghanistan is defending our own troops and the government (and, supposedly, the Afghans) against the blowback from our military presence and activity.

The question for Americans shouldn't be about strategy, but about the efficacy and wisdom of the primary objectives. The predictable effects and consequences of military action across sovereign borders into hostile territory - in what's arguably our own self-interest - is a dubious proposition, at best. That type of unavoidably destructive mission should have some imminent danger to our national security interests at the heart of its intent. The president and the Pentagon believe there is, but I think we'll find that there just isn't any overt threat to the U.S. which can be effectively defended against in Afghanistan. This type of military imperialism (seizing territory and installing U.S. compliant government structures behind the force of our military) is bound to fail and probably should.