The rush for the exits
The Washington Post is beginning to describe the war in Afghanistan in the same terms that this blog has been using for two years. The war is no longer about COIN (counter insurgency), but more about withdrawing 23,000 more soldiers from Afghanistan this year.
Instead of trying to continue large U.S. counterinsurgency operations for as long as he can, he is accelerating a handover of responsibility to Afghan security forces. He plans to order American and NATO troops to push Afghans into the lead across much of the country this summer, even in insurgent-ridden places that had not been candidates for an early transfer.
Whether those Afghan forces are ready for the hand-over or not. It’s a big rush for the exits;
The goal of the platoon’s walk through a bazaar and meetings with village leaders, the lieutenant said, was for the Afghan government to be “seen as an effective governing body that gains legitimacy with the local population.”
Such ambition used to elicit enthusiastic praise from visiting generals. Not anymore.
“How are you going to create that as an end state?” Allen asked, making no effort to mask his deep skepticism.
To quote our buddy, Grim at Blackfive;
At this point the President’s wind-down strategy is untenable, though he doesn’t know it yet; the Republican standard-bearer doesn’t obviously have an Afghan strategy at all. He’s been critical of the President, but hasn’t shown much evidence of having grappled with the problem seriously. That’s not surprising: Americans are tired of the wars, and hurting at home.
Yeah, who would have thought that someone could bungle Afghanistan more than George Bush did. Apparently the answer is “anyone”.
Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Terror War
I’m wondering how many B-52s and other bombers we still have handy…. pull out, then try to help the farmers by making the country all flat and easier to farm.
Well its not like the ANA hasn’t had ten whole years of support. If they can’t figure out how to hold their own country by now, than I’m sure no one will.
Greetings all! Long time reader, but this is my first post. Since introductions for new guys seems to be the trend, I’ll give the short version. I’m an Infantry CPT over here in Southern AFG on my third combat tour. 13 months is what this one is shaping up to be. I wanted to say that it’s refreshing to read what I’m usually thinking posted on this site by like-minded people such as yourselves. I was originally turned onto this blog because a friend had seen one of the fake soldiers from his home town get blown up by your page. The writing and subsequent comments were hysterical. I continued reading for the political insights, general observations about the direction of our country, and everything in between. The reason I chose this post to finally comment on is that this issue gets struck home on an almost daily basis. As a higher level staff officer, the first half of my one year tour allowed me to see the “massaging” of reports as they go higher up the chain. When you hear the Generals or SecDef spew the latest drivel about the success of ANSF, or “Afghans in the Lead”, at first I thought they were just lying. Then, after seeing the progress reports and storyboards pass up the chain, I realized that it’s become our culture to brief only what they want to hear. The information they use makes them actually believe Afghans are taking the lead over here. Now that I’m down at the operational side of the house I also see just how bad they are in the field. Is an ally really an ally when you have to guard against theft, sabotage, and being shot in the back? When you can’t trust them on guard for fear that they’ll be high, fall asleep, or just roll a frag into your sleeping tent? When you do a rehearsal, and then hear chatter hours later about the battle plan, what’s the point? Don’t misunderstand me. I love my job, my soldiers, and my country, and I’ll fight this war… Read more »
This whole thing seems like it’s turned in to:
Cluster-f¥ck,1each, OD green, non flying type.
All honor and respect to our boys and girls who keep soldiering on despite the challenges presented by our current leaderless-ship.
@1, I’m with CI Roller Dude, I’d say bomb them back to the stone age but they never left!?
Finally, Welcome aboard Captain J, we’ll forgive the fact you’re Army!:)
As for the good CPT, explainging that the briefings are only telling “them” what they want to hear-. That’s something that has never changed. If we reported something on our deployments that didn’t “fit” into what they wanted, they’d ignore the reporting. “Oh, those guys must be confused.”
But, if we gave them some total bullshit stuff they they hoped was real, they’d waste a whole week spinning cirlces chasing Elvis sightings.
One day in Iraq, I found over 137 “Elvis” sightings….spread all over Iraq— meaning it would have been impossilbe for them all to be “Elvis.”….because that’s what they wanted.
Welcome, Captain J! Hope to see you post frequently in the future! 🙂
Captain J–welcome. It was your first post that posessed me to look up the old, “How Plans Become Policy” bit and post it. Throughout time, regardless of service, shit like this has always happened to some extent.
This is a textbook case for why kinder, gentler wars waged with a half assed level of support are doomed from the start.