The U.S. forces have performed heroically, and many lives have been lost or irrevocably changed with wounds that will never heal. The U.S. has expended a significant part of the country’s treasure to free Iraq and start it on a course of freedom and democracy.  Certain lines of effort in the campaign have been clear and important throughout the history of the campaign for Iraq, one of which is the awakening movement (leading to the concerned citizens).

TCJ has made it clear from our initial coverage of the concerned citizens (later called the “Sons of Iraq”) that given the indigenous nature of much of the Sunni insurgency, settling disputes with the Sunnis was necessary (which was possible because they weren’t fighting for religious reasons like al Qaeda or the Taliban). Befriending those who were once shooting at you is a hard thing to do, but both the Sunnis and U.S. troops managed to do it because it was the right and smart thing to do. Combined with force projection by the U.S. Marines, it helped to win Anbar, and then subsequently Baghdad.

But Maliki may yet lose it all for us with his refusal to reconcile and recognize the legitimacy of the U.S. strategy.

The Shiite-dominated government in Iraq is driving out many leaders of Sunni citizen patrols, the groups of former insurgents who joined the American payroll and have been a major pillar in the decline in violence around the nation.

In restive Diyala Province, United States and Iraqi military officials say there were orders to arrest hundreds of members of what is known as the Awakening movement as part of large security operations by the Iraqi military. At least five senior members have been arrested there in recent weeks, leaders of the groups say.

West of Baghdad, former insurgent leaders contend that the Iraqi military is going after 650 Awakening members, many of whom have fled the once-violent area they had kept safe. While the crackdown appears to be focused on a relatively small number of leaders whom the Iraqi government considers the most dangerous, there are influential voices to dismantle the American backed movement entirely.

“The state cannot accept the Awakening,” said Sheik Jalaladeen al-Sagheer, a leading Shiite member of Parliament. “Their days are numbered.”

The government’s rising hostility toward the Awakening Councils amounts to a bet that its military, feeling increasingly strong, can provide security in former guerrilla strongholds without the support of these former Sunni fighters who once waged devastating attacks on United States and Iraqi targets. It also is occurring as Awakening members are eager to translate their influence and organization on the ground into political power.

But it is causing a rift with the American military, which contends that any significant diminution of the Awakening could result in renewed violence, jeopardizing the substantial security gains in the past year. United States commanders say that the practice, however unconventional, of paying the guerrillas has saved the lives of hundreds of American soldiers.

“If it is not handled properly, we could have a security issue,” said Brig. Gen. David Perkins, the senior military spokesman in Iraq. “You don’t want to give anybody a reason to turn back to Al Qaeda.” Many Sunni insurgents had previously been allied with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other extremist groups.

Even before the new pressure from the government, many Awakening members were growing frustrated — and at an especially delicate time. United States and Iraqi negotiators have just completed a draft security agreement that next year, Iraqi officials say, would substantially pull American forces back from cities and towns to be replaced by Iraqi security forces.

Awakening members complain, with rising bitterness, that the government has been slow to make good on its promises to recruit tens of thousands of its members into those security forces. General Perkins said only 5,200 members had been recruited in a force of about 100,000.

“Some people from the government encouraged us to fight against Al Qaeda, but it seems that now that Al Qaeda is finished they don’t want us anymore,” said Abu Marouf, who, according to American officials, was a powerful guerrilla leader in the 1920s Revolutionary Brigade west of Baghdad. “So how can you say I am not betrayed?”

After he said he discovered his name on lists of 650 names that an Iraqi Army brigade was using to arrest Awakening members west of Baghdad, Abu Marouf fled south of Falluja. His men, he said, “sacrificed and fought against Al Qaeda, and now the government wants to catch them and arrest them.”

It actually goes further than that, this surreptitious undercutting of the awakening movement. They don’t intend for them to be engaged in the provision of security for the population at all. They want to strip them of their weapons.

The groups, known as Awakening Councils, Sons of Iraq and Popular Committees, have helped rout al-Qaida in some parts of Iraq. But Shiite leaders fear the Sunnis’ switch of allegiance is just a tactic, and that they could one day turn their weapons against the Shiite majority.

The U.S., which put many of the Sunni fighters on its payroll, has urged al-Maliki to incorporate them into his security forces, but the government has been slow to do so.

In a speech to Shiite tribal leaders in Baghdad on Saturday, al-Maliki mixed praise for the Sunni fighters with a warning. He said armed groups, alongside security forces, were tolerated for a limited period because their weapons were “aimed at the chests of the terrorists.”

“So they (the Sunni fighters) deserve our gratitude and the inclusion (into the security forces) because we adhere to a policy that there are no arms but the arms of the government,” he said.

One day turn their weapons against the Shi’ite majority? The best way to ensure that is to attempt disarmament. Does Maliki really believe that the Sunnis will turn in all of their weapons, or that the ISF will be able to find them all? As for al Qaeda, they are probably not a threat. The indigenous Sunnis are more than capable of inflicting immeasurable pain on the country without AQI if they so choose.

Maliki and the Shi’ite majority love to refer to the awakening movement as a “cancer,” or “criminals.” But The Captain’s Journal considers Maliki a criminal for his willingness to meet and politic with Iranian officials, and his tolerance of the SIIC. So regarding criminality, it really is a matter of perspective, and Maliki’s current position amounts to nothing more than “might makes right.”

But is Maliki really that mighty?  Maliki obviously has a large degree of confidence in the ISF and the idea that the Sunnis will willingly roll over. TCJ is not as confident. But regardless of the outcome, Maliki’s actions are immoral and thuggish, and if Iraq is still peaceful once the “Shi’ite majority” has accomplished this disarmament and imprisonment of the awakening, it will be in spite of and not because of Maliki’s actions. Maliki may yet prove himself to be the most stolid dunce and inept stooge on the planet.

Returning from Camp Lejeune after seeing the 26th MEU (2/6) prepare to deploy.

Picked up a copy of The Globe, which has this article on the V-22.

Marines with Battery S, 5th Battalion, 10th Marine Regiment, made Marine Corps history as the first Marines to demonstrate the tow capabilities of the V-22 Osprey, which vertically lifted and maneuvered a M777 towed howitzer, Aug. 7.

“My team did extremely well,” said Wendel. “They did better than I thought they would especially for the first time.”

The demonstration was part of a field exercise helping to prepare the battery for a scheduled deployment with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit.

This training involved planning for raids and implementing the tow capability of the Osprey to reposition the howitzer quickly into position to support ground troops.

The exercise prepared the Marines to be self-sufficient at connecting and detaching the howitzer to and from an Osprey as it hovered overhead.

“It was pretty crazy under there,” said Cpl. Gerald W. Wendel, a section chief. “It was the strongest wind I had ever felt in my life. You can barely see or move. We pretty much had to ride the wind. Sand was flying everywhere, but the Marines did it. They adapted and overcame. It went extremely well.”

The Marines practiced a few dry runs through the scenario before the arrival of the aircraft for the pick up.

The Marines were highly motivated to have the opportunity to be the first gun crew to do this, said Wendel.

Once the howitzer was off the ground the pilots flew to another nearby landing zone where the gun was detached from the aircraft and placed into position for aiming in on imaginary targets.

“It was a pretty good lift with very minor damage,” said Gunnery Sgt. Nicholas Manganiello, the battery gunnery sergeant. “We can still put rounds down range, move and communicate. That’s our mission. As long as we can do that we are good.”

After successfully attaching the howitzer to the aircraft the Marines enjoyed their first flight in an Osprey as they were flown to the designated landing zone to finish the exercise with a dry-fire mission.

The V-22 Osprey just keeps proving itself up to the task as a replacement for the aging Marine transport. Flying further, faster and higher, proving itself capable of equipment transport is an added benefit compared to the troop transport duty it mainly saw in Anbar, Iraq.

Concerning TCJ article Why we are losing Afghanistan, writer and embedded journalist Andrew Lubin, who was in Afghanistan in the summer of this year, wrote to tell us:

The downside of “getting the word out” is that lots of people don’t like to read it. You wrote a good piece (and have always done so); and I hope you will continue. Did you see yesterday’s lead editorial in the NY Times “Afghanistan on Fire”…you need to read it. I spent June over there; it’s worse than you can imagine; it’s like Iraq in 2004-2005.

Michael Fumento (who has been to Afghanistan) also writes to give his concurrence with our views.  Thanks to both of these respected journalists, and the editorial to which Andrew refers is outstanding, especially coming from such a confused publication as the NYT.

Here is the link.  Read it.

Military.com recently carried this ridiculous account of a dustup over General Petraeus and religion.

Gen. David Petraeus is used to controversy surrounding the war in Iraq, but his publicized thoughts on an Army chaplain’s book for Soldiers put him squarely in the middle of the ongoing conflict over religious proselytizing in the U.S. military.

The book is “Under Orders: A Spiritual Handbook for Military Personnel,” by Army Chaplain (Lt. Col.) William McCoy, and according to Petraeus’ published endorsement of the work, “it should be in every rucksack for those times when soldiers need spiritual energy.”

But the endorsement – which has spurred a demand by a watchdog group for Petraeus’ dismissal and court martial on the grounds of establishing a religious requirement on troops – was a personal view never intended for publication, the book’s author now says.

“In the process of securing … comments for recommending the book I believe there was a basic misunderstanding on my part that the comments were publishable,” McCoy said in an Aug. 19 email to Military.com. “This was my mistake.”

In addition to Petraeus, Maj. Gen. Mark Hertling also is quoted plugging the book in press releases and advertisements and on the jacket.

McCoy, writing in response to Military.com’s Aug. 18 inquiry to Petraeus’ office for comment, said the two generals’ endorsements “were intended for me personally rather than for the general public.”

In response to follow-up questions from Military.com, McCoy said he has asked that all distribution of the book be halted until a new “graphic overlay” for the back cover is produced “so there is no further public misunderstanding.”

McCoy did not respond to questions on the timing of the endorsements, and why it took so long before the officials learned their endorsement has been used in print. Petraeus’ endorsement has been on the book since its 2007 publication, while Hertling’s plug first appeared on the 2005 edition. Both also are quoted in newspaper ads for the book and on the book’s Amazon.com Web page.

Patraeus spokesman Col. Steven Boylan said the general has been Iraq since the beginning of February 2007, “and unless someone [like Military.com] notes it, we would not be aware of it,” he said in an Aug. 19 email. “We don’t get the stateside papers in Baghdad and I doubt very much that Gen. Petraeus goes to Amazon.com much, if at all.”

Mikey Weinstein, head of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, believes McCoy is taking the fall for Petraeus and Hertling’s improper endorsements. Weinstein said it “strains credulity” that Petraeus never knew that his private written endorsement of the book was in the public domain since last year.

Weinstein is a former Air Force judge advocate general and White House counsel during the Reagan administration. His group has been fighting in the courts to keep improper proselytizing out of the military. Now, he said, he intends to incorprate the Petraeus and Hertling endorsements into an ongoing lawsuit against the Pentagon for an alleged pervasive and permicious “pattern and practice” of religious liberties violations in the military.

What a idiot – Weinstein, that is. Let’s cover some basics before we offer a terse response to him. The basics has to do with some brief observations by Rousas John Rushdoony concerning religion and the American system.

I first encountered Rushdoony at L’Abri, a Christian community high in the Swiss Alps. The year was 1964. Francis Schaeffer, the founder and director of L’Abri, had recently come across a little book by Rushdoony called This Independent Republic: Studies in the Nature and Meaning of American History, and he made it the basis for a seminar with the students at L’Abri. We gathered in the living room of Chalet les Mélèzes, where most of the community’s meetings were held. It was before Schaeffer became a popular sage for many evangelical Christians, and so we could study such a text informally, though we always did so with care.

The topics covered in the Rushdoony book were wide-ranging. The chapter that Schaeffer chose for the subject of his seminar focused on the difference between the American and the French Revolutions. Drawing on scholars such as Peter Drucker and James C. Malin, Rushdoony challenged the propriety of calling America’s defensive war against Great Britain a true revolution. According to him it was instead a “conservative counterrevolution,” whose purpose was to preserve American liberties from their usurpation by the British Parliament. It owed nothing to the Enlightenment. By contrast, the French Revolution was the direct result of the Enlightenment, along with the organizational strategies fostered by various secret and esoteric societies.

Though at the time I was too much a novice in history to judge the accuracy of his thesis, I was drawn to the clarity and cogency of Rushdoony’s arguments. Those were heady days at L’Abri, which in the sixties was a seedbed for ideas that captivated our imaginations and sought to link every area of our lives to a Christian worldview. A Christian historiography containing such a powerful critique of the point of view most of us received in school was for me a great stimulation. Rushdoony taught us that the American Constitution, with its eloquent absence of references to Christian faith, was a secular document only in appearance. In fact, it was deliberately fashioned as a minimalist document by men of genius whose primary purpose was to ensure the vitality of local government. Here Rushdoony added a distinctive perspective, one which would become a leitmotif throughout his long career, and one which would have a wide impact on other figures in his circle.

In Rushdoony’s view, the Constitution did not need to include a Christian confession because the states were already a Christian establishment or settlement. The First Amendment prohibited laws respecting the establishment of religion because religion was already established at the local level. There were sabbath rules, religious tests for citizenship, laws regarding heterosexual fidelity, blasphemy laws-all of them strongly connected to biblical law. The First Amendment was intended to protect the states from interference by the federal government.

The confusion of church and state would involve, for example, sanctioning a particular denomination such that they got financial breaks (e.g., viz. taxes) that other denominations did not. Public displays of religion, or the notion of a world view as the basis for a system of laws, is not breaking the barrier between the institutions of church and state. Further, barriers between church and government are not the same as barriers between religion and laws. All laws are based on some world view, and America has as the basis for its system of laws Judeo-Christian philosophy.

Now. Given this as backdrop, it makes no sense whatsoever for Mr. Weinstein to be troubling himself and us so with such childish arguments. He should find a way to contribute to the global war on terror, and quit pestering General Petraeus. Weinstein has officially become annoying to TCJ. The good General endorsed a particular book as good for his soul. So what? Doesn’t Weinstein have to go cut his grass or take out the trash, or something else useful?

TCJ hears Weinstein’s wife calling. You have chores, now. Run along.

Completely aside from any political point or campaign (TCJ is conservative), and in spite of having lost readers and links because of our stand, The Captain’s Journal has made it clear for more than half a year that the security situation in Afghanistan is degrading. We have pointed out that many NATO troops operate under rules of engagement that prevent them from participating in any offensive operations, that NATO has no coherent strategy of engagement with and provision of security for the population, and that the Taliban, once restricted primarily to asymmetric operations, have been able to field hundreds of fighters in heavily conventional operations such as the battle of Wanat, in a raging battle that U.S. soldiers describe as pure chaos.

While U.S. Army intelligence and senior command in Afghanistan was denying that there would be a spring offensive, we were describing the dual front strategy of the Taliban (with the Taliban directed towards Afghanistan, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban directed towards Pakistan, but assisting the Taliban), and the choking of NATO supplies through the Khyber Pass and Torkham Crossing (and even down to Karachi). None of this is to deny that U.S. soldiers (and Marines) have fought bravely and efficiently, but we have always claimed that we needed to increase the force size. The Financial Times has a sobering commentary on the Taliban creeping closer to Kabul that runs in the same theme as our reports.

Maidan Shah is a 30-minute drive from central Kabul, but locals say the mobile phone masts on a dusty hillock on the edge of town mark the beginning of Taliban territory.

The town is the capital of Wardak, one of several provinces to the south, west and east of Kabul where the Taliban are successfully stripping away support among ordinary Afghans for their government and the foreign troops that keep it in power.

Taliban commanders have been boasting for some time about their plan to surround the capital. And analysts say recent events are strikingly similar to the successful attempt by mujahideen “holy warriors” to cut off the Afghan capital in the early 1990s after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989.

“It’s rather like reading a book that seems familiar and realising that you have read it all before,” says Peter Jouvenal, a journalist who covered the conflicts of the 1980s and 1990s and now lives in Kabul.

In the early 1990s Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an Islamist leader still at large today, choked off supplies to the capital, where the communist government left behind after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 struggled to stay in office. Working with the Taliban, he repeated the trick in 1996 as they again laid siege to the city.

“It is a very old and effective tactic,” says Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani expert on Afghanistan and the Taliban. But one, he adds, that this time is aimed as much at the US and its Nato allies as the government in Kabul. “They are not trying to take cities, but this is a strategic offensive to gain as much ground as possible in the gap between the US presidential election and the next administration getting into office.

“They want to paralyse the Afghan government, create a crisis within Nato and force the west to negotiate in the spring.”

Haji Mohamad Hasrat Jan, head of the provincial council, says the government has lost its grip on Wardak over the past 12 months and now controls only the provincial capital. “The police, officials and MPs are afraid to go out into the districts because they are all in Taliban hands,” he says. “Even in the district centres authority does not stretch outside the official compounds.”

This report is eerily similar to our previous discussions about Afghani citizens working for NATO forces who were fearful for their lives and begging for protection, afraid to leave the gates of FOBs even to travel home to their families.

There are a host of reports on the situation that point to problems with poppy and a narco-state, corruption in government, the re-emergence of warlords, the ineptitude of the central authorities, the lack of infrastructure, the killing of aid workers, and other disheartening trends and events. But Reuters recently published an article that explains why the security situation is degrading.

Afghans believe the United States knows about al Qaeda bases in Pakistan, but does not hit them because it wants an unstable Afghanistan to justify its presence for wider regional goals, a state newspaper said on Wednesday.

While many Afghans have vented such thoughts for some time, it was the first time a state newspaper which generally reflects the government’s view has expressed them, and may point to a souring of relations between Afghanistan and its biggest backer.

Ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan, both major U.S. allies in its war against Islamic militants, have hit new lows with the Afghan government accusing Pakistan of funding and training Taliban and al Qaeda fighters for cross-border attacks.

Nearly seven years after U.S.-led and Afghan forces overthrew the Taliban government for refusing to hand over al Qaeda leaders behind the Sept. 11 attacks, the heads of the militant groups are still at large and are thought to be hiding in Pakistan.

With more than 70,000 mainly Western troops based in Afghanistan, many Afghans believe the United States and its allies are deliberately not doing enough to halt the threat.

The United States always said it would attack the militants wherever they were, but in reality it has not done so, the state-run Anis daily said.

“The Afghan people have long doubted such claims of foreigners, especially of Britain and America, and their trust about crushing al Qaeda and terrorism has fallen,” Anis said.

The perspective suffers from the “man on the moon” problem.

The troubles of the United States in Iraq have been blamed on many causes: too few troops, wrong strategies, flawed intelligence, a very stubborn commander-in-chief.

The Man on the Moon rarely rates a public mention.

But the Man on the Moon looms so large in relations between the U.S. and 28 million Iraqis that every U.S. field commander knows his job would be easier if no American had ever set foot on the moon.

The Man on the Moon even gets a specific mention in the counterinsurgency manual the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps adopted last December. It is now taught at every U.S. military college and has the following passage:

“U.S. forces start with a built-in challenge because of their reputation for accomplishment, what some call ‘the man on the moon syndrome.’ This refers to the expressed disbelief that a nation able to put a man on the moon cannot quickly restore basic services.

“In some cultures, failure to deliver promised results is automatically interpreted as deliberate deception rather than good intentions gone awry.”

While the “man on the moon” problem was learned by U.S. forces in Iraq, it is equally applicable to Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan don’t realize that NATO has no overarching counterinsurgency strategy, or that many of the 70,000 troops cannot fire their weapons except in self defense. All they see is a degrading security situation, and since America is capable of anything if it can land a man on the moon, then there must be an ulterior motive, or so the Afghan people think.

There you have it – the reason we are losing in Afghanistan, in spite of the hard efforts and blood, sweat and tears of so many brave American warriors. The population sees the security situation degrading and has lost faith that things will get any better. They will side with the stronger horse, and right now, it isn’t the U.S. or NATO. This perspective must change before the situation on the ground in Afghanistan changes. If Operation Iraqi Freedom has taught us anything, it has certainly taught us that the small footprint model for counterinsurgency in this part of the world is a loser.

**** UPDATE ****

Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link. The Independent has a related report.

Troop numbers in Afghanistan must increase to contain the surge in violence, says the commander of British forces in Helmand.

In an interview with The Independent ahead of Gordon Brown’s visit to the province yesterday, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said: “We are probably still on a growth trajectory before we get to the stage when the UK presence can begin to thin out.” The commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade estimated it would be up to five years before Britain could consider dropping troop numbers.

Senior military officers are reported to have held preliminary talks on increasing British soldiers in Afghanistan from 8,000 to 12,000 – a dramatic difference from the 3,300 initially expected to hold the ground when the UK force took over Helmand in 2006. The boost in numbers ties in with suggestions that troop levels in Iraq be scaled back.

Senior Nato commanders are said to be “screaming out” for more boots on the ground in Afghanistan.

It’s good to see acknowledgement of the situation, even if seven months behind The Captain’s Journal. However, we have already weighed in concerning the bare minimum we think is needed in Afghanistan.

Properly resourcing the campaign will require at least – but not limited to – three Marine Regimental Combat Teams (outfitted with V-22s, Harriers and all of the RCT support staff) and three Brigades (preferably at least one or two of which are highly mobile, rapid reaction Stryker Brigades). These forces must be deployed in the East and South and especially along the border, brought out from under the control of NATO and reporting only to CENTCOM. Finally, NATO must implement a sound, coherent counterinsurgency strategy across the board in the balance of Afghanistan.

We need more than the Brits are requesting – or at least, this is our view.

The Middle East Times recently had an interesting commentary concerning Musharraf and the Taliban.

Some 60,000 U.S. and NATO forces now in Afghanistan is a deceptive number, as all of NATO’s European forces — with the exception of the British and the Dutch — are hamstrung by caveats imposed by their parliaments against offensive operations.

Some 120,000 Pakistani troops (up from 100,000 in recent months) are now stationed in FATA. Strung out in more than 1,000 hilltop outposts overlooking infiltration routes in the valleys below, they complain about U.S.-supplied, obsolete night-vision equipment that is useless by moonlight. Inside the largely lawless FATA, the population is for the most part sympathetic to the jihadist insurgency. The jihadists also have sympathizers among the Pakistani-trained Frontier Corps, drawn from the local population and officered by Pakistani regulars. There is a widespread belief in the U.S. intelligence community of collusion between Pakistan’s intelligence services and the Taliban leadership.

Increasingly, the U.S. command in Afghanistan is launching drones, equipped with precision-guided bombs and missiles, against intelligence-generated targets of Taliban venues. This is seen in Pakistan as violating their sovereignty, but there isn’t much they can do about it, given that Taliban-in-Pakistan, a separate command from Taliban-in-Afghanistan, has ordered suicide bombings from the North-West Frontier Province to Sindh province in the south.

The unknown in the Pakistani imbroglio is Nawaz Sharif and Saudi Arabia, where he spent seven years in exile after being deposed by Musharraf’s 1999 army coup. U.S. influence in Pakistan is waning while the Saudis’ is waxing. The kingdom’s Wahhabi clergy have been funding many of Pakistan’s 12,000 madrassas since long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Libya and the United Arab Emirates also have kicked in sizable sums for these one-discipline Koranic schools. Prior to Sept. 11, only three countries — Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Pakistan — recognized the Taliban’s tyrannical theocracy in Kabul.

A Pakistani source just back from the Khyber Agency in FATA told this reporter Monday that posters of Nawaz Sharif were much in evidence. The people he spoke with were “extremely happy that Musharraf and the U.S. are leaving the scene.” Roadside stores were selling all types of arms (including rocket launchers) and ammo. Taliban in black turbans were roaming joyously in stolen vehicles.

The author clearly recognizes what we have already discussed in detail concerning the NATO troops, i.e., rules of engagement prevent their effectiveness.  But take particular note of his last paragraph.  People in the FATA are happy about Mesharraf and the U.S. leaving the scene.

Now take note of a recent Asia Times commentary on the departure of Musharraf.

“Musharraf had lost his utility as a useful asset for the ‘war on terror’,” retired general Hamid Gul, a security analyst and former director general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), told Asia Times Online.

“The Americans had been putting pressure on Islamabad since February for him to get its act together against the Taliban and al-Qaeda and Pakistan’s foreign minister [Shah Mahmood Qureshi] and Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, always told Washington that the government could not move forward independently because of Musharraf,” Gul said.

So was Musharraf the great killer of Taliban, or the vacillating, inept stooge he is made out to be by Gul?  In fact, Musharraf walked a tight rope, staying in power while the Taliban grew.  He could never recover from the theme of partial confrontation of the Taliban, and each side sees in his demise a benefit for their own cause.

In the case of the the Pakistani Army, quick (and quickly ended) strikes into the FATA won’t work.  Pakistan is facing an insurgency, and counterinsurgency is waged by protracted presence with the population.  Thus far, this is something they haven’t been willing to do.

Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani is said to be the newest leader of the Taliban war in Afghanistan, but there is nothing new about him, being a veteran of the war against Russia.

His son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is said to be taking over operational command of the Taliban fight in the Kunnar region of Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, and in fact Sirajuddin might be the next rival to Mullah Omar for overall leadership of the Afghan Taliban.

The Haqqani faction has sided with Baitullah Mehsud, and so despite the denials in the following interview, they are well connected to the Tehrik-i-Taliban.  The following interview is provided to you by NEFA Foundation, who has obtained video of a conversation with Taliban Deputy Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of the infamous Afghan mujahideen leader Jalaluddin Haqqani. Though only in his early thirties, Haqqani is considered one of the most powerful Taliban military commanders in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and has been rumored as a possible internal political rival to the current Taliban administration of Mullah Mohammed Omar. Haqqani has freely acknowledged his role in organizing recent terrorist attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul, and his partnership with foreign fighters arriving from elsewhere in the Muslim world. This video was made by Rahimullah Yousufzai, a veteran reporter/analyst based in Peshawar. 

Link to Interview  

The entire video is worth the study time, but a few things are worth mentioning.  First, their fight is stated to be ideological and religious, not just political.  Second, note a tactic we have discussed before here at TCJ.  He states that in the terrain owned by the Taliban they can field 100-200 fighters at a time for attacks, but that his real intent is not to control terrain.  He has sanctioned 15-20 fighters at a time to cause distuptions and harrass NATO forces, something we pointed out in The Taliban and Distributed Operations.

Finally, it bears mentioning once again – in order to maintain a consistent theme at TCJ – that force projection is the only answer to the growing Taliban threat.  The high value target program, relying on Pakistan to end the threat, and more NATO forces who cannot fight due to rules of engagement won’t solve the problem.

As of August 16th, it was said that more than 100,000 noncombatants had fled the most northerly province in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

About 100,000 Pakistani villagers have fled clashes between security forces and militants in a northwestern region raising the danger of a big humanitarian problem, a government official said on Friday.

Security forces and militants have been fighting in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border, a known sanctuary for al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, since the militants attacked a security post last week.

About 170 people have been killed, including some civilians, officials have said. The fighting has included strikes on militants by fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

The violence has triggered an exodus, with people streaming out of the region on packed pick-up trucks and on foot, many heading for the safety of the main northwestern city of Peshawar.

As of August 18, this number had swelled to approximately 300,000. This number is almost certainly exaggerated, but it’s obvious that Peshawar, which is the last bastion of normalcy in the tribal region and increasingly Talibanized every day, is receiving an influx of people for which it has no place or resources.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban have made their position on these operations well known.

Arif Yousafzai

PESHAWAR: The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has threatened to launch attacks on security forces and government installations in Mohmand Agency if the ongoing military operation in Bajaur is not halted immediately.

Talking to The Post on phone from an undisclosed location, TTP Mohmand Agency Amir Umer Khalid said Tehrik Chief Baitullah Mehsood had instructed him to make preparations for attacks on security forces in case the operation in Bajaur Agency was prolonged.

Umer said: “We have completed our preparations and are anxiously waiting for the orders of our chief. We can not sit quiet if our innocent brothers, sisters and kids are bombed in Bajaur Agency. Taliban have also decided to expand their intelligence system to identify people playing spies’ role and giving reports about the activities of Islamic insurgents to the government. We will publicly hang those who are acting as spies for the government.” They needed to take a lesson from two youths who we recently slaughtered in front of people after being proved guilty of spying for the government, he added.

The government seemed to be living in a fool’s paradise. It was underestimating the strength of Taliban, he said, adding that the militants had the courage to fight till last man. “If we are being bombed to appease America, we have the right to fight back to defend our ideology.”

The commander said thousands of people were fleeing Bajaur due to the bombing by government jets. It is unfortunate that the jets, which the government should have used against the enemies of Islam, are being used against the Islamists just because they are not ready to accept the American hegemony. Asked if Baitullah Mehsood could expand battle to other agencies and parts of the country, he said in the struggle for survival, nothing could not be ruled out.

Separately, talking to The Post on phone from an unspecified location, Taliban spokesman in Swat Haji Muslim Khan said their Amir in Swat valley, Maulana Fazalullah, had ordered to line up suicide bombers for escalating attacks on security forces and government installations across the country.

He said Taliban were fighting guerrilla warfare against the security forces in Swat and targeted killing of government functionaries would be started soon. The NWFP chief minister, cabinet ministers, Rehman Malik, MNAs and MPAs belonging to Swat and some police officials are on their hit list.

Haji Muslim said they appreciated the statement of Prime Minister’s Advisor Rehman Malik to prolong the military operation in Swat, adding that it would be better if Rehman Malik himself took the command of security forces there. “I suggest to Rehman Malik to come to Swat and lead the operation,” he said and added Taliban were fighting a sacred war for the enforcement of Shariah and hoped they would be successful.

On the other hand, Taliban Kurram Agency spokesman Fazal Saeed Haqqani said NATO, Irani and Afghan troops were busy operating against the Sunnis to help Shias. He said the Sunni-Shia strife started in Kurram Agency in 1961 and it had claimed hundreds of lives till today. He said Taliban had rocked Shias, but now the NATO, India, Afghanistan and Iran had reached there to rescue the Shia community. The Taliban self-described spokesman said the government never made sincere efforts to restore peace in Kurram Agency.

Time will tell the effectiveness of the current operations against the TTP. However, if the operations cease without total destruction of the TTP – a highly unlikely scenario – the operations will have been mostly a loss and failure, and the Tehrik-i-Taliban will come back empowered from the stand down in hostilities. We’ve seen it before many times. Meanwhile, the province of Ghazni has been ceded to the Afghan Taliban.

As The Captain’s Journal predicted more than half a year ago, the Taliban prepared dual fronts and are engaged in full bore summer operations.

The past few days have seen an unprecedented number of police deployed in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Security was tightened in and around Kabul on Sunday with 7,000 additional police officers deployed ahead of Monday’s 89th observance of Afghanistan’s independence from Great Britain.

Police were seen at newly established security checkpoints looking at every passing vehicle Sunday. Increased foot patrols were also apparent.

An Interior Ministry official said it was the biggest police operation in Kabul in several months.

Also on Sunday, dozens of Taliban militants were killed after they ambushed a convoy carrying supplies for NATO forces in southern Afghanistan, an Afghan official said.

Five security forces who worked for a private company were killed in the attack, in Zabul province, said Gulab Shah Alikhail, the deputy governor.

After the ambush, Afghan army forces were called in, Alikhail said.

Alikhail put the militants’ death toll at 32.

On Saturday, a roadside bomb killed 10 Afghan police officers in Kandahar province, according to Police Chief Matiullah Khan.

Khan blamed the Taliban and their al Qaeda associates for the attack.

“Who else is conducting this kind of cowardly acts except for the Taliban and al Qaeda people,” he said.

But it isn’t just the largest operation in several months. Kabul hasn’t seen this kind of security operations since the overthrow of the Taliban. Further, the police presence points to a security problem in the balance of Afghanistan, from which the threat comes.

A lawmaker from Kandahar who is critical of Karzai’s government said the police deployment has more to do with protecting the government’s reputation than reassuring the public.

“Unless they bring some comprehensive changes in the security, this deployment will not affect people’s confidence,” the lawmaker, Khalid Pashtun, said.

Pashtun said there had been a steady increase in kidnappings, robberies and other crimes this year.

“People are afraid to leave their house after 7 p.m.,” he said.

To the west, insurgents have been regularly attacking U.S.-led coalition and NATO supply convoys, burning fuel trucks and killing NATO and coalition soldiers.

To the east, the Tag Ab Valley of Kapisa Province has become the scene of near-daily clashes and airstrikes by the U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan.

Afghan and NATO officials insist that the nearly seven-year effort to bring stability to Afghanistan is progressing.

However, the security operation in Kabul is the second time this year that the authorities have taken extraordinary measures to reassure Afghans that cities are safe from a Taliban assault.

In June, Afghan and NATO commanders mustered thousands of troops to clear militants from a strategic valley within striking distance of Kandahar, Afghanistan’s main southern city.

Kabul is a center of gravity, and the Taliban know it. They are capable of forming en masse to threaten the city, and thus threaten the seat of government. The observances and celebrations are the raison du jour, and takes on no more significance than that. The real message here is the concern on the part of Kabul for its own stability, and the degrading security situation in Afghanistan.

Slightly to the Southeast in Pakistan, the Pakistani troops recently sent into the NWFP met with a nasty surprise.

When several hundred Pakistani troops backed by paramilitary forces on Friday launched an operation against militants in Bajaur Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan, they received a most unwelcome surprise.

News of the offensive, which proved to be the most bloody this year in Pakistan, had been leaked to the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda militants by sympathizers in the security forces, and the army walked into a literal hail of bullets.

Contacts familiar with the militants told Asia Times Online that every hill had observers as the first military convoys entered Bajaur – the main corridor leading to the Afghan provinces of Kunar, Nooristan, Kapisa and the capital Kabul – and they were quickly under attack.

In just a few hours, 65 soldiers were killed, 25 were taken prisoner and scores more were wounded. Under air cover, the soldiers retreated, leaving behind five vehicles and a tank, which are now part of the arsenal of the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The Pakistani troops have retreated, as the Taliban regroup, rearm, train, collect “taxes” and continue to send fighters into Afghanistan to topple the government and return it to Taliban rule. Even if Pakistan was a consistent ally in the war against al Qaeda and the Taliban (and they are little more than a halting ally), they aren’t capable of anything more than harassment of fighters in the tribal regions. More troops are needed in Afghanistan, now and not later.

In Georgia Pleads for Help Against Russian Brutality and Hegemony, we linked a photo of thugish Russian troops.

We noted the long hair, beards, inconsistent cover, and the idiotic sneakers and purple socks being worn by the dude on the back of the beaten up APC.

Here is another photo of a Russian “soldier” in Georgia where he doesn’t belong.

This photo comes courtesy of the New York Times (Joao Silva).  Note the lack of a blouse and the cover being worn backwards.  Again, the cover is being worn backwards, like some thug gang member.

They are perfect representatives of their thugish government.  Michael O’Hanlon waxed pathetic today on Foxnews about the provocation by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili that started the whole thing.  Unfortunately, Michael has bought into Russian propaganda.  Russia provoked the war, not Georgia.

“I blame the Russians,” he says, “because it was them who provoked the whole thing. They found some South Ossetians and some Abkhazians who have agreed to play their game.

“The Russians still cannot get used to the idea that Georgia is an independent state. They still want to use us as their slaves,” he says.

Asked about the destruction of the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, which many Ossetians have blamed firmly on Georgia’s bombardment, he is adamant.

“It’s not true that the Georgians have destroyed Tskhinvali. Russian troops were stationed in Tskhinvali and from their base in the city have provoked the Georgian side [over a long period]. I work in Gori and there was hardly a day when there wasn’t any shelling – virtually every day we had wounded delivered to our hospital – there was no end to Russia’s provocation, all year round. So Georgia had no choice but to defend itself.”

But as for all of the talk about the mighty Russian bear asserting itself in the world, Ralph Peters gives some background to the thugish, horrible appearance and behavior we have already noted above.

RUSSIA’s military is succeeding in its invasion of Georgia, but only because Moscow has applied overwhelming force.

This campaign was supposed to be the big debut for the Kremlin’s revitalized armed forces (funded by the country’s new petro-wealth). Well, the new Russian military looks a lot like the old Russian military: slovenly and not ready for prime time.

It can hammer tiny Georgia into submission – but this campaign unintentionally reveals plenty of enduring Russian weaknesses.

The most visible failings are those of the air force. Flying Moscow’s latest ground-attack jets armed with the country’s newest precision weapons, pilots are missing far more targets than they’re hitting.

All those strikes on civilian apartment buildings and other non-military targets? Some may be intentional (the Russians aren’t above terror-bombing), but most are just the result of ill-trained pilots flying scared.

They’re missing pipelines, rail lines and oil-storage facilities – just dumping their bombs as quickly as they can and heading home.

Russia’s also losing aircraft. The Kremlin admits two were shot down; the Georgians claimed they’d downed a dozen by Sunday. Split the difference, and you have seven or more Russian aircraft knocked out of the sky by a tiny enemy. Compare that to US Air Force losses – statistically zero – in combat in all of our wars since Desert Storm.

As one US officer observed to me, the Russian pilots are neither professionally nor emotionally toughened for their missions. Their equipment’s pretty good (not as good as ours), but their training lags – and their pilots log far fewer flight hours than ours do.

Russia has been planning and organizing this invasion for months. And they’re pulling it off – but the military’s embarrassing blunders must be infuriating Prime Minister Putin.

Let’s not overdo the notion of the mighty Russian bear, please.  They are thugs, led by a thug, and they look and behave unprofessionally because they are in fact unprofessional.  One more photo, from Reuters.

Note the stupid looking do-rag, the long hair and the inconsistent uniforms.  Thugs – commanded by a thug!