Any bets on what the Organizer-In-Chief decides to do with McCrystal’s latest report?

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2009/08/goodbye-war-in-afghanistan.html

http://www.captainsjournal.com/2009/08/30/safe-haven-for-the-taliban/

The heart of the problem is that the U.S. has been and continues to be unwilling to do what it says it is going to do to protect itself and that is why we are having problems in A-stan.

To elaborate: the U.S. got hit on 9-11 and we declared, as a sort of Corollary #1, that we would retaliate against and pursue those responsible wherever they could be found.

The U.S. did, in fact, go after AQ and the Taliban in Afghanistan and pretty much took care of the initial problem. The INITIAL problem. Predictably, however, AQ scattered like roaches. Some to Pakistan, some to Iran, some to Yemen, etc.. Rather quickly they found a more-or-less willing host in Pakistan where they could re-group, re-fit, re-form and re-commence their war against the U.S.

Did the U.S. then employ Corollary #1 against Pakistan? No, we did not. And we still refuse to do so. Same for Iran who hosts AQ leadership and has been actively at war against the U.S. since 1979.

I am sure that there are many cogent arguments as to why the U.S. cannot employ Corollary #1 against P-stan and Iran, but once the U.S. has surrendered the principle or otherwise limited its application, say, to only those countries that are too weak to defend themselves such as A-stan and Iraq, then we are in an untenable position.

To close the circle, the reason that we are struggling in A-stan is because we refuse to eliminate the havens in P-stan where the enemy takes refuge. Same as the Soviets. Without that vital sanctuary, AQ and the Taliban collapse and become a primitive curiosity, dwelling in remote caves, a threat to no one except perhaps the local goat population.

COIN is nice and good and McCrystal’s document is all nice talk, but it is not serious. We are willing to allow our military to die and suffer in A-stan because we will not go after the P-stan sanctuaries. (Sorry, little decapitation strikes with Predators do not count). In so doing, we violate a primary rule of counter-insurgency: cut off the insurgent’s base of supplies and support. If the Paks don’t like it, then they can pull some divisions off the Indian border and exercise the proper control over their own territory that a sovereign nation is obligated to do. Otherwise, the U.S. is coming in and wiping out every camp and stronghold. We are not staying to occupy, but we will ensure that AQ is going to spend all of their time re-building and re-constituting rather than attacking into A-stan (or New York, for that matter). As soon as our intel says there is a whiff of AQ in an area, we go back in and wipe them out again. It will become clear to the local population (and potential recruits) that enrolling in or supporting AQ and the Taliban is a death warrant and is the losing side. (If a villager knew that he would be paid well for reliable information on AQ whereabouts AND that the bad guys would promptly get whacked as a result, we might have more good intel than we could handle).

Until such time as the U.S. goes after the enemy in its base of operations, we are just swimming in quicksand.

I propose a completely new tactic.

Pull all our troops completely out of Afghanastan and then…

Obama should decree all Churches in the United States, Canada, NATO and Austrailia adopt a Family of Afghans, flood them with food, books, clothing, cooking utilzels, bedding, furniture for exactly one full year.

Then pull the hell out and say, “See, you could have still been getting all this…but ya just want to live like retards”…have fun in your mud huts, Eating your dirt, watching your dirt turn into more dirt. The West in done with you.

http://www.captainsjournal.com/2009/08/23/marine-force-protection-in-garmsir-afghanistan/

Engagement of the population doesn’t mean discarding or jettisoning the doctrine of force protection altogether or at all. It means doing the right things in the right location around the right people. Simple catch phrases just don’t do the complexity of this justice.

And that’s the root of the problem with the guidance, as I see it. It is given to extreme hyper-exaggeration in places, and is thus not the sort of thinking man’s document that was really needed. Finally, the push to disengage from kinetics is certainly not what much of the ISAF needed (Dutch troops, German troops) who have a propensity for that anyway.

Would it be considered inappropriate for him to get involved in the preparation and publication of this foolish document? Is he not still the theater commander?

Could it be that the Administration acquiesced in his appointment to CENTCOM with the aim of isolating him and keeping him out of any, real involvement in A-stan?

If not, I cannot comprehend that the man who orchestrated the comeback in Iraq could buy into the b.s. in this document. What gives?