Agricultural Component of the Afghanistan Surge?

[Tom Odom]

I saw that one and I guess if you want to write an extremist, conspiratorial viewpoint about how the Pentagon is out to conquer the US government, you can. Frankly it just shows that the person who wrote--despite his familial ties to the services through his father--has never served in the Pentagon.

Rumsfeld did push the boundaries and undercut other agencies. That does not leave those other agencies blameless, either in rolling over and accepting the Rumsfeldian push or later in faling to meet their own responsiblities.

Looks to me like the author is posturing for a job in the new administration.

Tom

[Surferbeetle]

Tom,

Like you I am biased and don't see it all as horrible/evil thing, but this article does serve to illustrate some of the perceptions we bump into out in the field. I have had to spend more time than I thought would be necessary with my DOS, OGA, USAID, and USACE friends working through the one team one fight concept. Change is tough.

I feel that we also need to look at why many of our Inter-Agency brothers have this perception...the whole where there is smoke there is fire thing does apply to a certain extent. We have not conquered our inter-service/inter-agency tribal tendencies and have yet to really make the DIME concept work in this fight. I believe that the force-mix requests and staffing are very telling in the upcoming Afghanistan Surge. I see little to no info about a surge in the D,I, & E components...

Best,

Steve

[jkm_101_fso]

The Kansas Army National Guard was selected to take the "Agricultural Development" mission in AFG for the next three years. Guard units in Kansas screened Soldiers in their formations with Ag backgrounds and asked for volunteers. With Kansas State being a huge aggie school, there are plenty of experts around, plus all of the small farmers. A friend of mine was picked up for a year long tour. He is a CPT and has an agronomy degree. He has been told that the mission consists of teaching afghans new methods of planting, irrigation and harvest. Plus he will be doing some soil work.

I'll post more as I find out. He leaves next month.

I found this:
http://www.army.mil/aps/08/informati...ment_Team.html

[Tom Odom]

Tom,

Like you I am biased and don't see it all as horrible/evil thing, but this article does serve to illustrate some of the perceptions we bump into out in the field. I have had to spend more time than I thought would be necessary with my DOS, OGA, USAID, and USACE friends working through the one team one fight concept. Change is tough.

I feel that we also need to look at why many of our Inter-Agency brothers have this perception...the whole where there is smoke there is fire thing does apply to a certain extent. We have not conquered our inter-service/inter-agency tribal tendencies and have yet to really make the DIME concept work in this fight. I believe that the force-mix requests and staffing are very telling in the upcoming Afghanistan Surge. I see little to no info about a surge in the D,I, & E components...

Best,

Steve

Steve

I agree that the biases and perceptions play a large role and do affect what we try and do. But where I disagree with this opinion piece are the ideas that:

a. The Pentagon is a monolith capable of acting as the inner evil empire; there are as many agendas inside the Pentagon as there are outside, perhaps more.

b. That inner agency friction is somehow a new phenomenon and that the Constitution is under attack as a result of the evil empir (see a.)

In 15 years of inter-agency work, the turf battles never stopped. At best, good leaders--civilian or uniformed--minimized the friction. At worst, bad leaders--civilian or uniformed--only thought in terms of their own agencies agenda. Based on this author's criticisms, I would tentatively place him in the latter category.

Best

Tom