Obama to let Afghan judges approve night raids
Yeah, I know it seems surreal doesn’t it? But the Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama Administration is offering to let advance approval rule our night time operations in Afghanistan – a direct result of the massacre perpetrated by one rogue soldier;
The administration’s most significant proposed concession on night raids would subject the operations to advance review by Afghan judges, U.S. military officials said. One option under discussion in U.S.-Afghan talks would require warrants to be issued before operations get the green light.
If this what we’re going to do, subjugate our battle against people killing Afghans to applications and judicial review of search warrants we might as well just bring the troops home today. Cuz you know we can have complete trust in the judicial system in Afghanistan. There will be no clerks informing for the Taliban or anything like that.
Every night raid will be an ambush. It’s not a war against terror any more – it’s a political campaign and troops are the cannon fodder for the next election.
Thanks to Kevin for the link.
Category: Terror War
I agree with you, Jonn, 100%. Bring our people home and let the country devolve back into the 7th Century bliss that they so desire.
Jonn: we might as well just bring the troops home today
Paraphrase of a pertinent quote I can’t quickly find…
“Who wants to be the last to die for a lost cause?”
As ugly as that sounds it ain’t nearly as ugly as the reality.
The bad guys are the martyrs???
GOOD GOD. They’re setting our troops up to be AMBUSHED?!?!
It’s time for our boys to mount their steeds and ride off into the sunset. Head west young men. Time to come home and let those idiots waller in their own stench.
Agree with #4 Dirtdiver, bring them home and keep a good supply of Cruise missiles on hand to launch periodically into that shit-hole.
I’m sure that will lead to a higher precentage of detentions and no night ambushes of our troops. (Is this guy fucking nuts?) No idea what OPSEC is…
Yup, definitely time to pull out. Our larger ‘cause’ in Afghanistan, to bring it kicking and screaming into the light of modern geo-political reality, is 100% undermined by any suggestion that we place fore knowledge of any military operations into hands of the very people who would corrupt that information and it’s use in a counter effort aimed at keeping the country in the dark ages.
To quote Josiah Royce;
‘A cause is good, not only for me, but for mankind, in so far, as it is essentially a “loyalty to loyalty,” that is, an aid, and a furtherance of loyalty in my fellows. It is an evil cause in so far as, despite the loyalty that it arouses in me, it is destructive of loyalty in the world of my fellows’
Accepting any idea of “advance review” or approval by Afghan judges is certainly destructive of loyalty in the ‘world of my fellows’. In plain speak, it’s a flat breaking of loyalty with my fellow soldiers by the current administration.
Does that mean the struggle in Afghanistan is a lost cause? At this point, yes.
This also from Royce;
A lost cause is not a hopeless cause but rather one that cannot be fulfilled within the actual lifetime of any of its members. These causes are those that are “lost” simply in virtue of their scope and magnitude and these are precisely the causes that establish ideals capable of evoking our highest hope and moral commitment.
We certainly dare to hope that we have planted the seed of change there, but we have just as certainly lost the ability to see it through to fruition, at least for now, and especially under this current leadership…………..
Soooo…no more night raids. What unit is going to allow a completely unreliable “ally” process a warrant on an HVT. It made me nervous when our terps would use their cells before rolling out. Time to pack it in.
Nothing good can come from this, so I agree with everyone else; time to pack up our toys and come home, now (of course I have been saying that for a while now).
I have been, up to reading this, a supporter of this war. Now, I want our troops pulled from Afghanistan ASAP and home as quickly as possible.
Jesus…I hate to say we’ve already lost, but when we see shit like this….just say fuck it and bring ’em home.
Ok, so where are the resignations? This is Saturday night massacre scale lunacy.
I’m long past wanting us out of Afghanistan, but from this proposal a question remains: when do you turn the rhetoric about a nations sovereignty into practice?
CI, the answer: when the troops they shoot on a compromised night raid are their own.
Fair enough, let’s allow the ANA that latitude, extract and get busy hunting al Qai’da.
You people, this the “Vietnam War” the far left loons want. They want real defeat and to make our men and women of the US military look like crap….You people are buying into this line of crap? Really?
@16 – Yeah, it can’t possibly be that we’re not finding a military solution to defeat the Taliban; we’re ‘partnered’ with an illegitimate and intractably corrupt government; and we’ve marched to the beat of al Qai’da’s orchestra by becoming immersed in a land war in Afghanistan while they set up shop nearly everywhere else…..
It’s all the conspiracy of the far left to make us look like crap…..
@16 Unfortunately, streetsweeper…I think we’re looking at the WH’s withdrawal strategy for Afghanistan. Precisely so they can repeat history, they are developing the conditions that will assure a painful, nightmarish, “see-we-told-you-so” end to a war they never believed in to begin with.
Why is this not front page news? This is such an example of blazing incompetence it would boggle even a simpleton’s mind. Barry might take Karzai’s dick out of his mouth long enough to realize that casualties increase overnight with this boneheaded policy. This shit is over, they have been bitching about the nighttime raids for years and now this “massacre” gave them the ammo they needed to twist our pussy ass administration’s arm enough to comply. If I didn’t know for fact that the majority of our leadership in the big army were spineless yes men I would expect mass resignations and protests. Chesty Puller, and Patton are rolling over in their graves as we speak.
NDV #19: There it is.
Makes sense.
Obama’s from Chicago, right? If I remember various gangster movies correctly, it’s just etiquette to let the gangsters know when and where a police raid was planned. Obama’s just extending that courtesy onto the world stage.
What Zero says.
And when we leave, we ought to use every last bullet and explosive we have to destroy, disable, level and otherwise make useless every single thing we can’t take out with us, including buildings, generators, airfields, hangers, hospitals, fuel depots, vehicles, roads, bridges, telephone poles, etc.
“Charlie Wilson’s War”…..Read the book, watch the movie. Pay special attention to what Gust Avrkotos has to say…then go back through various media and see where the far-left has pushed for the return to battle in Afghanistan over Iraq. Co-incidence? Maybe. Likely? Yep….Mother Russia is still looking for royal payback, for getting their asses stomped by a bunch of goat herders & horseback freedom fighters.
😉
That’d be Cahrlie Wilson and Mike Vickers…
sickening. you think washington would have known for a long time that fighting a war is impossible when we politically handicap ourselves. if we are just going to keep stumbling down that road instead of fighting to win then, you are right john, everyone should come home.
@22, there is now way in hell that will happen. We don’t have free reign on a port to ship all pf our shit from. The Paki’s have made it clear they aren’t going to re-open the routes through their country to get to a port unless we unleash a massive political and economic blowjob on them which is highly likely with Barry running the joint. If not we will be sure to abandon billions of dollars of valuable shit because it isn’t cost effective to extract it. The Iraq withdrawl was a completely different beast than thos debacle will be
Afghanistan is the world’s version of our Vietnam. From Alexander to the brits to the soviets, didn’t work. We tried the nice guy approach, that will never work. Leave them to their own devices, maintain intel networks there, and bomb as needed. Nation building is a lost cause, as history has shown us repeatdly
Meet Mike Vickers Green Beret..
I believe Gust had it right….
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.
The primary mission of the United States Armed Forces is to protect and defend the Nation. This is a security mission and is clearly outlined and regulated by national and international protocols. The term “close with and destroy the enemy” makes it clear that there is no judicial function in its mission. The Law of Land Warfare and the Geneva Conventions provide a framework for the legalities of belligerencies. Inherent in this war fighting requirement is the immediacy of combat operations which is in opposition to judicial protocols. Judicial protocols imply an after the fact imposition of justice which is highly formalized and regulated. The military has neither the police training nor assets (Military police serve as a combat support, not a law enforcement function) in a highly volatile and lethal environment. To impose standard judicial protocols to land warfare is detrimental to their effective mission accomplishment and conducive of lethality for our service members. Until we have a clear understanding of what constitutes lawful combatants and unlawful combatants and what are their rights under US law and under international conventions are, these protocols will remain a lethal distraction in the execution of military operations in insurgencies.
@33- That’s what I was going to say…
#28 There is nothing special about Afghanistan, after Iraq. We’ve done very well with nation-building where we’ve actually chosen to do it. The problem is a civilian administration that is utterly incompetent in an astonishing number of areas of governance. They are doing for Afghanistan what they’ve done for our economy.
Thats it, we’re done. I no longer will support our continued presence in Afghanistan. Our Men are there for nothing, we cant bring peace, the people hate us, let the savages revert to the subhumans they are without anymore of our comrades dying. I cant wait to see Karzais head on a Pike
If anyone can pressure the losers in Washington to do something it’s this blog. Bring them home if we’re not in it to win. Let’s go.
The struggle in A-stan was always a lost cause. Even under Bush was the political-correctness forced on the troops already far too much. The coalition could never fight a war the way a war should be fought. And this has started long before Bush even took office.
Political correctness and professional whiners have effectively destroyed the combat abilities of the western militaries.
Sounds to me like an excellent exit strategy. Make the win unattainable and then withdraw…..now it is no longer a loss and you can say “but I did it for the good of the troops”. Win-win.
Unfortunately real people are dying while someone is trying to score with the voters.
Now we are officially policing the world. What’s next… after every firefight there will be an investigation and shooting reconstruction? Soldiers will be assigned desk duty until they are cleared. Send in the clowns… Chieu Hoi!
@40, you joke but after every firefight there almost is an investigation and as for the shooting reconstruction the first thing the PL did when we got back to the COP was put together a fucking 80 slide story board detailing exactly what happened for all of the staff officers at battalion salivating for it. God help you if a civilian got hurt or killed in the melee.
The defeat of Our Troops by our body politic looms on the horizon.
Ironically, it is becoming more likely under the politicians that have engineered it, at a time when they can be voted out in a matter of months.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/war-stories/2012/03/16/afghan-ambivalence
http://waronterrornews.typepad.com/ps/2012/03/the-last-to-still-argue-for-a-win-in-afghanistan.html
Unlike a lot of my fellows, I never had a problem with us going into Afghanistan. But this is crazysauce.
We’re not anybody else’s bullyboys. If that’s what we’re going to be, it’s time for us to leave.
Wow. First they trash The Constituation in stating that UN/NATO approval for military action is needed, not congressional approval (http://townhall.com/tipsheet/katehicks/2012/03/08/panetta_wed_seek_international_approval_not_congress_to_act_in_syria) and now they leave the decision up to Afghan judges? What next? Mexican “officials” get to decide how we guard our boarders?
Un-fricking-believable! What in the world, I recon there will be a form to fill out too….and then if the judge approves the mission will it be postponed allowing the taliban time to appeal the judges decision. As others have said, if it is coming to this then bring our brave troops home.
On another note tis funny how there is such a rush to charge and get the SSGT that is said to of killed the 16 civies in A-stan to trial. It is ashame the Army has not shown the same speed in charging and brining to just the Fort Hood killer…gee we even have witnesses there….wonder why?
Here are some colorful thoughts some one sent me on it:
“After reading the headlines today about the US soldier who shot up Afghanistan civilians, I couldn’t help noticing an irony. There is all this clamor to try this guy quickly and execute him, never mind his having suffered a traumatic brain injury. Yet this Major Hasan, who shot up Fort Hood while screaming Allah akbar, still hasn’t stood trial, and they are still debating whether he was insane, even with the clear evidence regarding his motive: slay as many infidels as possible. So we have a guy in a war zone who cracks, and he must be executed immediately. But this Muslim psychiatrist who was stateside in a nice safe office all day murders 13, wounds 29 of our own guys, and they try to argue the poor lad suffered post-traumatic stress syndrome, from listening to real soldiers who had actual battle experience. Two and a half years later, they still haven’t tried the murderous bastard.”
RLTW
#45
Yep. But if you confront Obamaites, et al, over this “discrepancy,” it’s one convoluted justification after another on why Bales should be fried ASAP, but Hasan is just a poor misunderstood Muslim step-child who was just trying to find his groove. Or some such empty equivalence.
MACV-SOG ran missions into Laos. They attempted to run groups in the north. None the groups in the North succeeded; many missions into Laos were compromised — the NVA were waiting for the teams on insertion. Every SOG mission had to be signed off by the White House, the US ambassador in Laos, and people in the MACV chain of command. There was a traitor in the MACV chain of command. This article: http://www.sofmag.com/2009/01/sog-sold-out-by-nva-traitor is not the best on this topic but I cannot quickly find the authoritative source. By abandoning OPSEC I see every reason to expect the same outcome in Afghanistan. How many teams do we have to lose before higher simply stops running missions? If we cannot run missions, why bother?
#13″I’m long past wanting us out of Afghanistan, but from this proposal a question remains: when do you turn the rhetoric about a nations sovereignty into practice?” CI I think you and I are going in the same direction. Above Jonn wrote “One option under discussion in U.S.-Afghan talks would require warrants to be issued before operations get the green light.” this should eventually happen in a COIN campaign. As the enemy is cleared of the area(s), overtime, the rule of law is restored. As order comes about so do police patroling, warrants, and, procedures, this very thing happened during and after the immediate surge in Iraq. This should occur in most of the country before we transition out, we are obviously not there yet. Outside of possibly the major cities like Kabul and Kandahar, I have no idea how they can make this concession. Even if you believe the administration that most of the surged areas of the south are secured, most have only just recently been so. Second we don’t have anywhere near the Afghan security personal to plausibly hold with or the judiciary needed for proper due process. Eastern Afghanistan is a whole different monster entirely, we can’t even contemplate such. Night Raids. A)I know above mostly deals of warrants in conjunction with night raids but with Karzai pushing for the pulling back from the villages, it ties in with the general purpose forces as well(GPF). B)”…the Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama Administration is offering to let advance approval rule our night time operations in Afghanistan – a direct result of the massacre…” This is the wrong reason to implement such a policy. It’s not a reward or concession judgement, it’s one that should be based on capability. This is a task they simply are not ready for yet. C)The night raids successes have been overstated and have been diminishing over the last two years as the enemy has developed effective counter measures to foil us. Most of the losses inflicted on the enemy have overwhelming come from the GPFs securing/policing locales not the operators’… Read more »
@Cedo – I can’t find a single fault with your points A, B and C.
#49 K’ thanks