An example of what happens when things are centralized
for 'efficiency' and to preclude 'fraud, waste and abuse.' Effectiveness goes down the tube. The end result is almost invariably greater expense through hidden costs and unintended consequences. Plus it tends to get people killed unnecessarily... :mad:
It amazes me that Congress -- the real culprits -- are willing to trust the Schmedlaps to take the sons and daughters of their voters into combat but do not believe they can be trusted to hire interpreters, pay informers or pay for minor projects.
Actually, it isn't amazing, it's just pathetic.
My son's platoon in Iraq had a good interpreter for their whole tour. That, too was before the 'system' took over...
I can't solve the language training problem ....
but something akin to the Urban Dictionary (e.g., "salope", which you won't find in my pocket Larousse, but in my pocket Cousin briefly), would seem useful for key words and phrases. Stan could be more intelligent on this than I. ;)
Ramming in a magazine or pulling back a charging handle gets attention
as it should. You shouldn't have to do that and I have to wonder with the boots and the water, what the NCOs and Officers of the units responsible were doing -- obviously not watching what their troops were doing....
Happens in every war, though. My dad was a USN Supply officer in WW II, one day he was sitting in his Quonset on Guam when three Marines walked in with a requisition for something; a little Storekeeper 3d started giving them static and one of the Marines cranked back the bolt on his M1. Storekeeper; "Sir, he's threatening me!" Dad; "Probably ought to give him what he wants and in future avoid smarting off to armed Marines." :wry:
Not being an Officer and thus constrained, I've backed down an Ordnance Battalion XO in one war and a COSCOM 1LT and CSM in another with an implicit but not certainly not voiced threat of unseemly and inelegant firearms use in a rear area. So if it's happened in the current wars, it seems to me a permanent affliction. My solution to the problem is to eliminate those kinds of Commands. Note that both I mentioned are gone. :D
My plan is working. Now, for Sustainment Brigades... :cool:
We can agree that more and better is highly desirable
As it always is. Unfortunately, I doubt there will be much improvement for a host of reasons, some good and some not. I understand the dispersion factor in Iraq and know, as you do, that the two theaters are very different. The Son was in a Rifle Platoon and had an interpreter; they worked away from the company more often than not.
However, on this, re: Afghanistan:
Quote:
We're not succeeding there, either. We'd be doing much better if we could communicate more effectively.
I'm not sure on the 'succeeding' and I suspect that is very much dependent on one's perception of how success in Afghanistan will look. I also believe that it'll take a few months to determine how well or how badly we're doing.
My personal belief -- and that of a few recent returnees and some there now or on the way back -- is that better communication in the sense you mean would make little real or long term difference though I acknowledge short term gains might be had. In the long term, we are highly unlikely to get some of the things all can agree would be nice and that we claim to be working toward. The Afghans from any of the ethnic or language groups with whom one converses with will be polite and very accommodating -- and really just want us and the the sagerdan gone. Both. With all allies. Next month. Today would be better...
Good COIN technique is not a ticket to success; lack of it is bad, no question, and we certainly need to know more, train better and work at it a bit -- but the best practitioner in the world is not going to beat a stacked deck. Iraq just had a couple of Jokers in there -- the 'Stan is a stacked deck.
In any event, we aren't going to solve the problem and I acknowledge the issue is problematic and also agree it should be less a problem.