Reading on COIN in Afghanistan: a place to start

[jcustis]

The conversation between Jacqui Janes and Pm Gordon Brown is gaining a little media traction the past few days here David. Not much, but enough to have been replayed several times at least yesterday.

One of the things that struck me were her assertions regarding the lack of equipment, such as support helicopters. Now this Welsh Guard officer's accounts...

How is this playing out in the news over your way?

[Coldstreamer]

...to the uninitiated, our Prime Minister is unlucky, hapless and a poor communicator who despite some errors, has an opportunistic opposition and some slightly dubious senior military advisors who have recently been tainted with party-political affililiations.

To the initiated, this man is singlehandledly responsible for the politicisation of Defence and its serial under-resourcing since 1997. As Chancellor (in charge of all tax-raising and national budgetary decisions), he had near total ownership not only of how much each department received, but also audit over how it was spent. Therefore our output and policy based Strategic Defence Review never stood a chance of being realised as a resourced plan. Blair could make no decision without Brown's approval, as he had no mastery of detail, and wouldn't challenge his symbiotic ally. Brown was therefore part of the flawed decisionmaking that saw us strategically distracted by Iraq, therefore allowing Afghanistan to fester. At no point did the man understand, support or sympathise with the Armed Forces in anything they did as an entity, other than to individual empathise with young working class men and women whom he instinctively felt were being exploited by people from privileged backgrounds who leap-frogged them in life.

You have to understand, this man is a lifelong committed socialist who is dedicated to State control and intervention of all aspects of life. He does not understand international dynamics. He refuses to acknowledge opposing points of view. Any dissent is to be isolated, discredited and then destroyed in detail. He has achieved his political success by the most ruthless form of socialist machine politics. You have to study it to believe it, the way the UK New Labour movement is straight out of George Orwell's 1984 - starting with control of language and the ownership of the single 'narrative'.

Other than that, he's a hell of a fella. We're very lucky to enjoy such enlightened leadership.

[031-Bacon,RG]

Coldstreamer:

Other than that, he's a hell of a fella. We're very lucky to enjoy such enlightened leadership.

Other than that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

Sorry, I just couldn't resist.

[Coldstreamer]

Excellent.

[davidbfpo]

Jon,

You asked:

The conversation between Jacqui Janes and Pm Gordon Brown is gaining a little media traction the past few days here David..How is this playing out in the news over your way?.

I have commented on a different thread 'UK's Failing Strategy'
:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...?t=7644&page=2

The scenes from Wotton Bassett of the funeral cortege(s) have a greater impact than Jacqui Janes -v- PM Gordon Brown IMHO on UK public opinion. Now others acknowledge a failure to explain to the oublic why; let alone to those serving like the late Mark Evison (on the other thread). I doubt many look too far, notably the losses time after time over the same territory and deaths to enable the last presidential election.

Even those who have been sympathetic, like the veteran Sunday Times reporter Christina Lamb, to our intervention now write "enough is enough" and in her last sentence I suspect sums up many othyer's opinion:

I don’t think we should just withdraw and let the Taleban take over. But I do believe we shouldn’t compound the mistakes already made by sending yet more young men to die.

From: http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/54...-targets.thtml

[Coldstreamer]

...winning always struck me as an attractive option. There are too few people with the guts to publicly face down - and correct - ill informed public opinion.

We shouldn't bloody withdraw. We should stop buggering things up and start doing things right - starting with resourcing the McChrystal review and shifting the whole mission to an OMLT model - which field men have been saying for years. Tactics 101: don't send a battalion to conduct a Divisional operation and moan about casualties afterwords!

Or am I in some parallel universe of force ratios and proper prior preparation preventing p*** poor performance...?

[IntelTrooper]

We should stop buggering things up and start doing things right - starting with resourcing the McChrystal review and shifting the whole mission to an OMLT model - which field men have been saying for years.

Amen, brother. Shifting more resources to OMLT/CSTC-A mission would improve the unity of effort and command and be an instant force multiplier, plus improve the mentorship of the Afghan forces.