The David Kilcullen Collection (merged thread)

[SWJED]

... thanks.

[Merv Benson]

One of the things that has made the debate on the war so ridiculous is the misuse of the term lie.

For example a mistake is not a lie. If you believe something to be true, such as Saddam having WMD, and you can't find the WMD. that does not mean you lied when you repeated intelligence you were given by the CIA or the UN weapons inspectors.

Changing ones mind is also not a lie. A statement of present intentions is just that and if you change your mind, your original statement was still not a lie.

Perhaps it is because I have prosecuted fraud cases and other cases involving false statements, that these kind of arguments bother me so much. But, they really distract from the substance of the debate we should be having on policy.

BTW, Bill Clinton's intentionally false statements were not just about a personal matter. They were about an attempt to deny a plaintiff in a sexual harassment case a fair trial. Defendants in cases are not allowed to lie to avoid responsibility for their conduct. That is why the court held him in contempt.

[Abu Buckwheat]

It seems to me, that the Supremes have already decided that this is, in fact, a constitutionally declared war. I lack the Google-fu to find a good link to this, however.

This is NOT a declared war. The last declared war was WWII. It is an "authorization for the use of force" ...

[VinceC]

I was mistaken in an earlier post ... the U.S. Civil War was not a declared war under the Constitution. Rather, it involved the Executive Branch as commander in chief and Legislative Branch with its Constitutional power to "suppress insurrections." The Federal position was that the Confederate states did not have the legal right to secede and so were not a state entity.

Article 1, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution:
http://www.archives.gov/national-arc...ranscript.html

The Congress shall have Power:
... To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

The fact that informed and intelligent people, on this forum and elsewhere, are uncertain whether a state of declared war exists is in itself fascinating. Of the many uncertainties in life, it has usually not been nebulous to know whether Congress has formally declared war.


Alberto Gonzales in Congressional testimony -- February 6, 2006:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...020601359.html

GONZALES: There was not a war declaration, either in connection with Al Qaida or in Iraq. It was an authorization to use military force.

I only want to clarify that, because there are implications. Obviously, when you talk about a war declaration, you're possibly talking about affecting treaties, diplomatic relations. And so there is a distinction in law and in practice. And we're not talking about a war declaration. This is an authorization only to use military force.

[jlechelt]

misuse of the term lie. ... For example a mistake is not a lie. ... Changing ones mind is also not a lie. A statement of present intentions is just that and if you change your mind, your original statement was still not a lie.

Agreed. There is much misuse of the term lie. Also, mistakes and the changing of minds are not lies. However, the two points I made regarding President Bush were not examples of mistakes and mind-changing.
First, President Bush was already considering changing his Secretary of Defense when he stated clearly that he had no intention of changing his Secretary of Defense. Read the transcript of President Bush's post-election press conference: he even explained why he said he was going to keep him when he knew he wasn't going to.
Second, when he stated just before the election "absolutely we're winning," and then flip-flopped immediately after the election and stated that "we aren't winning, we aren't losing," there was no real-world event that hit the US war effort in such a way that would have magically brought about a changing of the presidential mind. The US situation in Iraq was the same when he made both statements.
Perhaps you can offer an explanation for why he lied. Maybe you think the lies were justifiable. Elections are important events, and I'm sure he felt the nation was better served with the GOP still in control of Congress. And so, towards those ends, he felt the lies were justifiable. But none of those factors make the lies he told anything other than lies; a reasonable person cannot claim that both examples were not lies.
I don't want to harp on these points. The lies were not the worst things that ever happened. And all reasonable people can agree that all presidents and political leaders have lied at some point. (Who among us would claim he or she never told a lie?) However, it amazes me that people have a tough time admitting this simple fact. So lets get back to the mind-changing experiences and mistakes at hand.

Perhaps it is because I have prosecuted fraud cases and other cases involving false statements, that these kind of arguments bother me so much. But, they really distract from the substance of the debate we should be having on policy.

Indeed these arguments distract from the larger discussions of the mistakes made in this war. So admit to reality and let's move on.

BTW, Bill Clinton's intentionally false statements were not just about a personal matter. They were about an attempt to deny a plaintiff in a sexual harassment case a fair trial. Defendants in cases are not allowed to lie to avoid responsibility for their conduct. That is why the court held him in contempt.

Bill Clinton's intentionally false statements were indeed about a personal matter. That personal matter ALSO had to do with accusations of sexual harassment. Charges of sexual harassment, mind you, that were never proven. That doesn't justify lying under oath, but it's a far cry from the problems we now encounter in the world.

[Steve Blair]

Politicians lie. It's what they do. The level this is "exposed" has more to do with political affiliation than it does facts or at times the good of the nation. However, everyone here is expected to keep the discussion civil. That includes avoiding "my lying politician is better than your lying politician" polemics.

[jlechelt]

... thanks.

Agreed. Hopefully my posts do not convey unintended harshness. I only hope to be direct. Everything I write comes with a large dose of respect for all views, whether they are in line with my own, or not. I enjoy the give and take here and I learn much from the diverse assortment of ideas, opinions, and experiences.

Looking over what I have written, I see nothing that could be taken as un-civil, though many people here may disagree with my opinions. Hopefully those desiring civility do not define civility based on the positions held on issues. Definitions of civility should solely be based on the tone used. And in that regard, I wholly respect everyone here. In dealing with issues like honesty, wars, political parties, and presidents, passionate responses are often exchanged. Hopefully everyone here can recognize passion and not mistake it for a lack of civility.

Thanks to all.

[120mm]

Clinton did lie under oath. The fact that he lied about a personal affair is undeniable. Though I hate to have to make this kind of choice, but I would take Clinton's misdeeds regarding his personal life over the deadly misdeeds of this administration. Ultimately, I long for an administration where we don't have to deal with either. Besides, I think a closer look at the Bush Administration would find a number of criminal issues (Libby first and foremost, Claude Allen, DOJ, etc.). And make no mistake, an investigation into a sitting administration is inherently politically motivated. Whether it is done against a Democrat or Republican.

I insinuate partisanship in your post because your post is laced with partisanship. Venomous innuendo is venomous innuendo.

Take a breath? Why would I be out of breath from typing? And because I don't agree with you, that means I don't read? Really? Your quiver is so empty you must make that claim?

I deny emphatically that I am being partisan. In fact, I think Pres. Clinton would be a much better "long-war" leader than the current guy (in my estimation, Bush is the Republican's version of Jimmy Carter - idealism and incompetence, all wrapped up in a ball.) Clinton was a much better politician, and would've found at least a national IO theme by now that "worked."

The point I was trying to make, was that it is waaaay too convenient to "Trotsky" Bush and Company for our failures in the current conflict. There are lots of other institutions and individuals who screwed the pooch, and are leading the charge against the White House for their own reasons.

I don't know if you intended it as so, but your take on venomous innuendo is hilarious. Welcome to the forum!

[jlechelt]

I deny emphatically that I am being partisan. In fact, I think Pres. Clinton would be a much better "long-war" leader than the current guy (in my estimation, Bush is the Republican's version of Jimmy Carter - idealism and incompetence, all wrapped up in a ball.) Clinton was a much better politician, and would've found at least a national IO theme by now that "worked."

The point I was trying to make, was that it is waaaay too convenient to "Trotsky" Bush and Company for our failures in the current conflict. There are lots of other institutions and individuals who screwed the pooch, and are leading the charge against the White House for their own reasons.

I don't know if you intended it as so, but your take on venomous innuendo is hilarious. Welcome to the forum!

120: Gracias. I agree. A war is lost - or hindered greatly - by people far beyond any given White House.

[Shivan]

Dear Sir,

I'm currently writing on the Taliban, tentatively titled, "Cultural Intelligence: The Taliban, Pashtuns and Counter-Insurgency". Your answer, if possible, would aid my work. You wrote:

One of AQ’s standard techniques. . .is to marry leaders and key operatives to women from prominent tribal families. . .(Last year, while working in the tribal agencies along Pakistan’s North-West Frontier, a Khyber Rifles officer told me “we Punjabis are the foreigners here: al Qa’ida have been here 25 years and have married into the Pashtun hill-tribes to the point where it’s hard to tell the terrorists from everyone else.”)

Why was there not, if you know, a similar reaction among Pashtuns, to non-Pashtuns, say, Chechens, Arabs, Uzbeks, marrying Pashtun women? Or if there were reactions, how were they resolved?

Thanks,

Shivan

[SWJED]

Video: Charlie Rose: An Hour with Dave Kilcullen - Friday's interview with Dave Kilcullen.

[SWJED]

Road-Building in Afghanistan
Part 1 of a Series on Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency

By Dr. David Kilcullen at SWJ Blog

As a tactics instructor in the mid-1990s, teaching British platoon commanders at the School of Infantry, I spent many weeks on extended field exercises in the wilds of south Wales and on windswept Salisbury Plain. Both landscapes are studded with Roman military antiquities, relics of ancient counterinsurgency campaigns – mile-castles, military roads, legion encampments – as well as the Iron Age hill-forts of the Romans’ insurgent adversaries. Teaching ambushing, I often found that ambush sites I chose from a map, even on the remotest hillsides, would turn out (once I dragged my weary, rucksack-carrying ass to the actual spot) to have Roman or Celtic ruins on them, and often a Roman military road nearby: call me lacking in self-assurance, but I often found this a comforting vote of confidence in my tactical judgment from the collective wisdom of the ancestors.

Like the Romans, counterinsurgents through history have engaged in road-building as a tool for projecting military force, extending governance and the rule of law, enhancing political communication and bringing economic development, health and education to the population. Clearly, roads that are patrolled by friendly forces or secured by local allies also have the tactical benefit of channeling and restricting insurgent movement and compartmenting terrain across which guerrillas could otherwise move freely. But the political impact of road-building is even more striking than its tactical effect.

This is my first Small Wars Journal post for several months; since leaving Iraq last year I have been working mainly on Afghanistan, in the field and in various coalition capitals. This brief essay (brief by my risibly low standards, anyhow!) describes recent road-building efforts in Afghanistan. A follow-on piece will explore the broader notion of political maneuver in counterinsurgency, using road-building as one of several examples...

[Ron Humphrey]

Road-Building in Afghanistan
Part 1 of a Series on Political Maneuver in Counterinsurgency

By Dr. David Kilcullen at SWJ Blog

It really helps some of us when it broken down in laymans terms.

Keep up the good work Doc

[Eden]

There is an interesting synergy going on here. I worked with CJTF-76 planners quite a bit in 2006, and the bright young majors in the cell there were all enthusiastic readers of Kilcullen. Now he is going back and seeing (and learning from, one supposes) his own theories more or less brought to life. Luckily for us, he then turns this experience into more thoughtful prose. I still have reservations over the operational decisions made in Afghanistan - the resources spent in the Korengal valley would have been better allocated elsewhere - but at the tactical level we are making great progress.

[John T. Fishel]

Dave Kilcullen's post is a reminder of lessons learned long ago in the development world. Over 40 years ago, anthropologist Carlton Beals remarked that it had been his experience that one road was worth more than a dozen schools and 100 administrators. My doctoral research in the Peruvian Andes took a somewhat different perspective. I found that the key factor in development was leadership in the locality - whether it was from someone born there or an outsider such as a teacher assigned there who identified with the community. I did note that if the locality did not have a road, the first goal of the local leaders was to acquire one.

Hence, my experience supports fully Kilcullen's report. A road ain't just a road but rather a vehicle for achieving political goals and objectives.

Cheers

JohnT

[slapout9]

In the March-April edition of Military Review there is an article on applied Systems Thinking by none other than the 82ND Airborne(some guy wrote it) about how linking stuff togather (roads!) is key to COIN Ops. Don't have time to find the link but it is a good one. It has drawings and diagrams that help explain the concept.

[Ken White]

anyone. Aside from the Philippines, WW II, Korea, Viet Nam, all the roads we built in Central America in the 80s and 90s...

[tequila]

Would be remiss to avoid posting Joshua Foust's spirited objection to Kilcullen here: The Strange Benefits of Paving Afghanistan.

Basically he accuses Kilcullen of overselling the security benefits of road-building when what is likely need (in security terms) are more troops to adequately cover and control areas which are not amenable to roads.

[Ken White]

what then? One should always have a Plan B...

Theorizers theorize, reality bites.

[tequila]

But a road without troops to patrol it only lends mobility to the enemy. As Foust points out, the Romans learned this to their chagrin.