From CBS News:

President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today.

It’s “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies …

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it’s calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

“We are not talking about a national ID card,” Locke said at the Stanford event. “We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities.”

The Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project, Locke said.

Details about the “trusted identity” project are unusually scarce. Last year’s announcement referenced a possible forthcoming smart card or digital certificate that would prove that online users are who they say they are. These digital IDs would be offered to consumers by online vendors for financial transactions.

Schmidt stressed today that anonymity and pseudonymity will remain possible on the Internet. “I don’t have to get a credential if I don’t want to,” he said. There’s no chance that “a centralized database will emerge,” and “we need the private sector to lead the implementation of this,” he said.

More legislation by executive order.  If you can’t get the people to go along, then just abuse your authority and demand it anyway.  Isn’t that how the American system works?

And don’t you just love government guarantees?  There is no chance – NO CHANCE – that a centralized database will emerge.  None.  I guess Schmidt is a “prophet or son or a prophet” (viz. Amos), but as for me, I suppose I could be hit by a rogue meteor today that enters the earth’s atmosphere and aims straight for me, and I certainly don’t know that a centralized database cannot emerge.

Truth is that whether I am hit by a meteor today, progressives don’t care about freedom and never have, any more than they care about your rights.  All they care about is government control.  It’s their faith, their worldview, their framework for life.  The state is the savior of the people, and we should all be glad that the government cares enough about us to worry over how many computer passwords we have to memorize.

Regular readers know my position on abandoning the Pech River Valley in Afghanistan, and chasing the insurgents into their havens to kill them, so there is no need to rehearse that issue.  Now comes James Foley’s report on the Pech River Valley area.  As an aside, Jim has done and is doing some of the best reporting coming out of Afghanistan.  I have exchanged mail with Jim, and find him to be not only learned about the situation in Afghanistan, but friendly and open minded as well.  Any time you can catch his reporting you should do so.  You will be richer for it.  Now for his report.

Did you catch Lt. Col. Joe Ryan’s views on our presence in the Pech Valley?  Our presence helps the insurgency by giving them an enemy to fight.  Do regular readers remember what other situations we have discussed where the same claim was made?

Think for a moment.  Who else regurgitated these talking points?  What army was it, and where were they located?  Think hard.

For the astute readers, you’re right.  The British failure in Basra is storied, and covered in painful, lengthy, gory detail here at The Captain’s Journal.  Recall their final justification for retreat (with flags waving proudly)?  It was this:

Rather than being – as the anti-war brigade claimed – a humiliating retreat, the tactical withdrawal from Saddam’s old summer palace on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab was undertaken on the basis that the continuing presence of British troops was exacerbating, rather than helping, the local security situation.

Goodness yes.  Best to let the Sadrists take full control of things, executing whomever they wish, destroying infrastructure, and generally wreaking havoc until the ISF and U.S. forces finally wrested control of Basra from them with stiff-armed kinetics.  At least we aren’t being shot at.  The brutish Yankees are doing the labor.  Time to go home.

We now sound like the British in Basra – the talk is now about full-on retreat.  The end cannot be far off.

From Greg Jaffe of The Washington Post:

The Army’s official history of the battle of Wanat – one of the most intensely scrutinized engagements of the Afghan war – largely absolves top commanders of the deaths of nine U.S. soldiers and instead blames the confusing and unpredictable nature of war.

The history of the July 2008 battle was almost two years in the making and triggered a roiling debate at all levels of the Army about whether mid-level and senior battlefield commanders should be held accountable for mistakes made under the extreme duress of combat.

An initial draft of the Wanat history, which was obtained by The Washington Post and other media outlets in the summer of 2009, placed the preponderance of blame for the losses on the higher-level battalion and brigade commanders who oversaw the mission, saying they failed to provide the proper resources to the unit in Wanat.

The final history, released in recent weeks, drops many of the earlier conclusions and instead focuses on failures of lower-level commanders.

The battle of Wanat, which took place in a remote mountain village near the Pakistan border, produced four investigations and sidetracked the careers of several Army officers, whose promotions were either put on hold or canceled. The 230-page Army history is likely to be the military’s last word on the episode, and reflects a growing consensus within the ranks that the Army should be cautious in blaming battlefield commanders for failures in demanding wars such as the conflict in Afghanistan.

Family members of the deceased at Wanat reacted with anger and disappointment to the final version of the Army history.

“They blame the platoon-level leadership for all the mistakes at Wanat,” said retired Col. David Brostrom, whose son was killed in the fighting. “It blames my dead son. They really missed the point.”

The initial investigation, conducted by a three-star Marine Corps general and completed in the spring, found that the company and battalion commanders were “derelict in their duty” to provide proper oversight and resources to the soldiers fighting at Wanat.

Petraeus reviewed the findings and concluded that based on Army doctrine, the brigade commander, who was the senior U.S. officer in the area, also failed in his job. He recommended that all three officers be issued letters of reprimand, which would essentially end their careers.

After the officers appealed their reprimands, a senior Army general in the United States reversed the decision to punish the officers, formerly members of the the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

Gen. Charles Campbell told family members of the deceased that the letters of reprimand would have a chilling effect on other battlefield commanders, who often must make difficult decisions with limited information, according to a tape of his remarks. He also concluded that the deaths were not the direct result of the officers’ mistakes.

The Army’s final history of the Wanat battle largely echoes Campbell’s conclusions, citing the role of “uncertainty [as] a factor inseparable from any military operation.”

In its conclusions, the study maintains that U.S. commanders had a weak grasp of the area’s complicated politics, causing them to underestimate the hostility to a U.S. presence in Wanat.

“Within the valley communities there had been hundreds of years of intertribal and intercommunity conflict, magnified by hundreds of years of geographic isolation. Understanding the cultural antagonisms present in [Wanat] was difficult and complicated,” it said. “Coalition leaders had difficulty understanding the political situation.”

But the history focuses mostly on the failures of lower-level commanders to patrol aggressively in the area around Wanat as they were building their defenses. It also criticizes 1st Lt. Jonathan Brostrom, a 24-year-old platoon leader, for placing a key observation point in an area that did not provide the half-dozen U.S. soldiers placed there a broad enough view to spot the enemy.

“The placement of the OP [Observation Post] is perhaps the most important factor contributing to the course of the engagement at Wanat,” the report states.

The initial investigation, by contrast, found that the placement of the post was not a major factor in the outcome of the battle.

That investigation also found that mid-level Army officers failed to plan the operation beyond the first four days and as a result failed to provide sufficient manpower, water and other resources to defend the base from a Taliban attack. The official history makes little mention of such conclusions.

Analysis & Commentary

This information and perspective is mostly known to regular readers of The Captain’s Journal.  We have discussed the Battle of Wanat many times before, and linked the final report as soon as it was released (as well as commented on the original Cubbison report).

The main theme of Jaffe’s analysis is the reversal of reprimands for senior staff level officers and the switch to holding lower level field grade officers accountable for the failures.  But there are other aspects as well, and we must address those in order to crawl through the weeds.  Unfortunately, the weeds block our view and add little to nothing to the overall reality of the situation.

One such weed garden is this notion that:

“Within the valley communities there had been hundreds of years of intertribal and intercommunity conflict, magnified by hundreds of years of geographic isolation. Understanding the cultural antagonisms present in [Wanat] was difficult and complicated,” it said. “Coalition leaders had difficulty understanding the political situation.”

Maybe true, maybe significant for other considerations, and maybe frustrating, but irrelevant in this context (the battle proper, and whom to hold accountable for what happened).  It’s just weeds that block our view.  In Analysis of the Battle of Wanat, we discussed how “The meetings with tribal and governmental officials to procure territory for VPB Wanat went on for about one year, and one elder privately said to U.S. Army officers that given the inherent appearance of tribal agreement with the outpost, it would be best if the Army simply constructed the base without interaction with the tribes. As it turns out, the protracted negotiations allowed AAF (anti-Afghan forces, in this case an acronym for Taliban, including some Tehrik-i-Taliban) to plan and stage a complex attack well in advance of turning the first shovel full of sand to fill HESCO barriers.”

Local intelligence, also from tribal elders, pointed to massing of forces and planned attacks on VPB Wanat.  However complicated the tribal machinations and our attempts to understand them, they weren’t so complicated that we didn’t have good intelligence or even good counsel.  Had we followed the elder’s advice, the patrol base might have been manned and fortified well before the massing of forces that occurred by the Taliban, and in fact local atmospherics might have been different with time for interaction with U.S. forces.

But if the notion of tribal complexities is a smoke screen, so is the issue of limitations in weapons capabilities.  As we have discussed before:

It’s tempting to point the finger at weapons systems, just as it is tempting to fault the company with lack of soft COIN efforts.  But in the end, they were outnumbered about 6:1 (300+ to about 50), they were on a poor choice of terrain, they had poor logistics, they suffered lack of air and artillery support, and most importantly, they simply were never given the proper number of troops or the resources to engage in force protection, much less robust force projection.  They were under-resourced, and no analysis of weapons systems can change that fact.  Rather than focus on why the M4 jams after firing 360 rounds in 30 minutes, the real question is why this particular M4 had to be put through this kind of test to begin with?

It’s wise to deploy the right weapons for the job, and if that means that each squad carries an M-14 for the DM position, then so be it.  Commanding officers should make that happen.  There are plenty of M-14s left in our armories, and they should be put to use in the longer distance engagements.  But in the end weapons systems malfunctions is simply not a compelling excuse or even one of the root causes of what happened at Wanat.  It just isn’t, and time spent on worrying over that is time wasted.

Col. David Brostrom is rightfully indignant over his son’s role in the report.  Dead men cannot defend themselves, and Lt. Brostrom represents too easy of a target.  In that respect, the final report is petty and cowardly.  Nonetheless, I maintained, and continue to maintain, that OP Top Side was a poor tactical choice.

Most of the men who perished that fateful day did so attempting to defend or relieve OP Top Side (8 of the 9 who perished), and the kill ratio that day still favored the U.S. troops (“There were between 21 and 52 AAF killed and 45 wounded. Considering a clinical assessment of kill ratio can be a pointer to the level of risk associated with this VPB and OP. 21/9 = 2.33, 52/9 = 5.77 (2.33 – 5.77), and 45/27 = 1.67. These are very low compared to historical data (on the order of 10:1).”).

In previous discussions, one commenter weighs in with the following:

I definitely disagree with the idea of OP Topside as far-flung. It was only located 60 yards from the edge of VPB Kahler. In fact, the Company Commander was not pleased with the placement of OP Topside, but the LT believed placing the OP among the bounders in proximity to Kahler would make it easier to reinforce if a big attack did come. This in fact, proved to be the case as Topside was reinforced multiple times and proved the key to defeating the enemy attack at Wanat.

Strange analysis, this is.  OP Top Side proved to be the Achilles heal of the whole VPB.  Without having to relieve it, it is probable that most of the men who perished that fateful night would not have.  More salient is this comment by Slab:

Where I think you hit the nail on the head is when you mention the terrain. The platoon in Wanat sacrificed control of the key terrain in the area in order to locate closer to the population. This was a significant risk, and I don’t see any indication that they attempted to sufficiently mitigate that risk. I can empathize a little bit – I was the first Marine on deck at Camp Blessing back when it was still Firebase Catamount, in late 2003. I took responsibility for the camp’s security from a platoon from the 10th Mountain Div, and established a perimeter defense around it. Looking back, I don’t think I adequately controlled the key terrain around the camp. The platoon that replaced me took some steps to correct that, and I think it played a significant role when they were attacked on March 22nd of 2004. COIN theorists love to say that the population is the key terrain, but I think Wanat shows that ignoring the existing natural terrain in favor of the population is a risky proposition, especially in Afghanistan.

Moving on to Bing West’s analysis of assigning blame for Wanat, he observes:

In my forthcoming book, The Wrong War, I describe Wanat in the larger context of a multi-year struggle for control of the mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan. Grave tactical and operational errors culminated in the Wanat battle. In The Wrong War, I conclude that at the operational level of war, Wanat “provided the classic case study of how insurgents conquer a superior foe. . . . The Americans intended to separate the people from the insurgents. Instead, the insurgents succeeded in separating the people from the Americans.”

Reporting from the Wanat area on Monday, Jaffe quoted the on-scene U.S. battalion commander as saying, “We fight here because the enemy is here. The enemy fights here because we are here. The best thing we can do is to pull back, and let the Afghans figure this place out.” The essential problem in the valley that includes Wanat was not a tactical mistake. The vexing nature of the tribal loyalties in eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistan border far transcends the conduct of a single battle.

The Army, however, was heavy-handed and obtuse in handling the reviews of the Wanat battle. Many officers disagreed with the reviewing generals who recommended the reprimands, and others disagreed with Cubbison’s draft. Combat veterans can make a reasonable case one way or the other. But for the Army as an institution to zig-zag invites criticism and raises unhelpful suspicions.

At a larger level, the incident illustrates the inherent problem in the promotion system of all the services. Errors happen in every war. Often victory goes to the side making the fewer mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes: Washington at Great Meadow and later Long Island, Lee at Gettysburg, Halsey and the typhoons, Chesty Puller at Peleliu, MacArthur and the Chosin, etc.

One of the three officers at Wanat cited by Petraeus for reprimand is a superb officer; I believe he would make a fine field general. It should be possible for a selection board to assess a reprimand, place it in balance against an entire career and continue to promote an outstanding officer. In business, CEOs fail miserably and are rewarded, illustrating the selfish, back-scratching nature of too many corporate boards of trustees; in the military, the services demand that an officer receive upwards of 40 fitness reports without a blemish in order to qualify for general officer selection. The services thus institutionally tend to reward the cautious, rather than the bold.

Separating the people from the Americans is also a bit exaggerated (or at least, somewhat irrelevant) when discussing the battle proper.  Using only open source information, we can develop patterns of behavior with the Taliban that would have alerted U.S. commanders to expect such massing of forces.  If I can do it, Army intelligence can do it.  Good historiography brings in all elements of the problem to set the proper context, but even with proper context the basic outline of the problem doesn’t change.

There weren’t enough U.S. forces.  It took too long to set up VPB Wanat.  The Taliban worked much more quickly than did we in setting up their military operations.  The U.S. sacrificed control of key terrain around VPB Wanat – and especially OP Top Side – in an attempt to provide proximity to the population.  They summarily ignored both tribal counsel to set up the patrol base and tribal intelligence concerning massing of forces and imminent attacks, attacks that in fact followed tactics that could even be known by studying open source information.

Bing weighs in on holding officers accountable, and demurs insofar as it costs us openness and a learning environment.  Whatever.  I will observe that Marine Corps concepts of force projection and force protection are different and generally more aggressive.  Aggressiveness could have helped in the Waygul valley, but their aggressiveness was limited by the lack of resources.

Col. Brostrom is right about holding commanding officers accountable.  If his son objected to the placement of OP Top Side, so much the better.  But whatever responsibility must be shouldered for the engagement, it increases with increasing rank.  Pressing authority up and accountability down is the tactic of cowards.  Refusing to hold higher ranking officers accountable for fear of creating a climate of suspicion runs both directions.  If we cannot hold senior officers accountable, then neither can we (morally and rightly) hold lower ranking field grade officers accountable.  And if we hold anyone accountable, higher authority means shouldering more of the responsibility.  It’s just the way it is.  This is true in the family, in business, in relationships, and in church.  To claim that it could be anything else in the military is laughable and worthy of ridicule.

Prior:

Drone Front and Other Recommended Reading

Close Air Support of COP Kahler at Wanat

What Really Happened at Wanat?

Wanat Officers Issued Career-Ending Reprimands

Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer

Second-Guessing the Battles of Wanat and Kamdesh

Wanat Video II

Wanat Video

The Battle of Wanat, Massing of Troops, and Attacks in Nuristan

The Contribution of the Afghan National Army in the Battle of Wanat

Investigating the Battle of Wanat

Analysis of the Battle of Wanat

In Second Amendment Quick Hits #3, there is a lawsuit in North Carolina that bears on the carrying of weapons in situations of so-called riots or “other emergencies.”  The Brady campaign has intoned against the Second Amendment (again) as you might guess.

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence today filed a brief in federal court in North Carolina urging the court to dismiss a lawsuit seeking a right to take up arms in streets and other public spaces during riots or other emergencies.  The lawsuit challenges a longstanding North Carolina law that allows gun carrying on a person’s property but temporarily bars public gun carrying in the vicinity of a riot and during states of emergency.

“The Second Amendment does not grant a right of vigilantes to take up arms on our streets during a riot or state of emergency,” said Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.  “Police and emergency responders seeking to quell a riot or deliver aid during an emergency should not be forced to contend with legally-authorized armed individuals and groups roaming alleys and public streets.”

The Brady Center’s brief argues that there is no right of armed vigilantes to take to the streets during riots or congregate in the vicinity of emergency responders trying to secure a downtown during riots, looting, or terrorist attacks.  The prospect of police and emergency responders being powerless to stop bands of armed citizens from taking to the streets during emergencies, looting, or rioting poses a serious threat to the government’s ability to maintain public order and deliver emergency services.  If the lawsuit were successful, law enforcement would be unable to detect whether roaming armed individuals or gangs were would-be looters, terrorists, or vigilantes, thus jeopardizing their safety and their ability to respond to states of emergency.

David Codrea observes that “on this much, Helmke is correct: The Second Amendment grants no rights.  It recognizes them, and declares they shall not be infringed.”  Codrea goes on to analyze the Los Angeles riots in the context of this lawsuit, very worthwhile reading.  But note the way the Brady Campaign has cast the issue.  Rather than defending yourself, family and property, if you own and carry a weapon in a time of “emergency,” you are a vigilante, a part of “armed bands of citizens” roaming the streets, making it impossible for the police to ascertain the difference between you and criminals.  Presuppositions are everything, no?

Next, note the Firearms Freedom Act introduced in South Carolina.

Prefiled in the South Carolina by State Senators Lee Bright and Danny Verdin is Senate Bill 249 (S0249), the Firearms Freedom Act (FFA). The bill states that:

A personal firearm, a firearm accessory, or ammunition that is manufactured commercially or privately in South Carolina and that remains within the borders of South Carolina is not subject to federal law or federal regulation, including registration, under the authority of Congress to regulate interstate commerce.

Since 2009, 8 states have passed similar legislation as law – Montana, Tennessee, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Idaho, Alaska and Arizona. And, here at the Tenth Amendment Center we expect to see at least a dozen other states consider Firearms Freedom Acts in 2011.

The United States Constitution gives Congress the authority to regulate Interstate Commerce between the states, and 18 USC 922 makes it unlawful for any person not licensed as a manufacturer or dealer in firearms to engage in the business of manufacturing or dealing in firearms. Collectively, the Interstate Commerce Clause and 18 USC 922 are used by the federal goverenment as a means to regulate, control and often-times ban, firearms.

The South Carolina Firearms Freedom Act addresses this by exempting firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition manufactured and retained in the state from all federal firearm control laws including registration, as firearms that meet these criteria cannot be regulated by the federal government because they have not traveled in interstate commerce.

“Basically, we’re saying if the gun is made here, South Carolina is going to say what kind of regulations apply,” Bright said. “We feel that South Carolinians should be able to determine how to protect themselves — not the federal government — which is why most people have firearms.”

It’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which this doesn’t eventually make its way to the SCOTUS, although it’s also difficult to imagine what the government’s case would be since there is no interstate commerce occurring under the stipulations of this law.  But my bet is that the current administration orders the U.S. Solicitor General to take up the case (or better said, make a case where there isn’t one).

Prior:

The Feds Muscle In On Long Gun Sales

Breyer: Founding Fathers Would Have Allowed Restrictions on Guns

Bruce Rolston continues to advocate for a small footprint in Afghanistan.

A Marine LCol in Helmand: “I’m not lighting up an area where families we know and support are living in order to suppress a couple of idiots who were shooting a few long range, ineffective rounds.” Bingo.

From Tim himself, on how to do COIN in the nearly unpopulated border province of Nimruz, presenting the problem, the solution, the problem with the solution, and the solution to that problem all in one tight three-inch group:

I ask one of my brother Marines what he would do were he given this problem to solve under the historical constraints normally faced by Marine commanders fighting a small war. He replied immediately ; Q-cars, fire force and pseudo operators [references to Rhodesian COIN TTPs --B.]. Which is exactly the same thing I would say as would all of my friends who are in the business. But the only way a regimental or battalion commander could even think of doing that now would be if we sent a vast majority of the troops deployed here (along with every colonel and general not in command of troops) home.

Yes, yes, YES.

The sheer untapped potential of ANSF platoon houses with embedded enablers (not Western companies with a few doorkickers) in the cleared areas, combined with modern ISR- and CAS-enabled Rhodesian style pseudo-operators and fireforces replacing large-scale sweep ops in the uncleared Pashtun areas, with the highways patrolled by mine-resistant vehicles in the IED zones and Q-Cars (a land derivative of the Q-Ship) in the ambush zones simply boggles the mind.

But Tim has also described the intense fire fights in Helmand (and Marine Corps small unit maneuver warfare), and the Marines have requested more men to secure Helmand.  In Sangin they note that “you don’t go south unless you have a lot of dudes.”

You see, the context in which Tim comments is the Nimruz Province, where most U.S. police departments could handle the problem.  The insurgency is coming from Helmand, Kandahar, Kunar, Nuristan and other such parts of the AfPak region.

Bruce conflates one thing with another (“replacing large-scale sweep ops in the uncleared Pashtun areas“), and Tim isn’t – as best as I can tell – advocating a small footprint in Helmand or Kandahar or Kunar or Nuristan.  And I continue to advocate a heavy footprint in those regions.