Back in January, I gave a briefing on administrative, political, economic and infrastructure mapping in Northern Iraq---that had only been put together in 2008. Hard to believe that we spent six years there and knew very little about the actual structure of the society, government and economy. Build first, plan second.
Fortunately, I was told, Afghanistan was different. Everything had been mapped to a tee and we knew everything about the place. Yeah, right.
Recent articles and reports on the political, administrative side already told me that the civilian side is a Lost Ball in Tall Grass, with most everybody hunkered down and killing time.
Just makes me want to spit, though, seeing these young troops dropped into the middle of a very dangerous nowhere without a clue of what's going on. No context, no understanding. No effective translator.
Whatever the President decides, I hope it is not just "more of the same."
Just an empty commitment made by some big shots to put boots on the ground in Helmand.
That would be a bad, bad idea. Schemdlap likes to say that he doesn't do strategy; Mike doesn't do garrison. One of me is enough. Every sergeant major would either immediately retire or be stricken with a heart attack if there were more of me running around. We'd win Iraq and Afghanistan, but we'd be left we a standing army that only jumped outta planes, played rugby, surfed and drank too much calling it work.Originally Posted by IntelTrooper
.
Mike
On Pakistan
Jake, that's a tough one, and I don't know if I have the "right" answers for it, but here it goes.
First, for six years, we just threw money at the problem. Money without any recourse thinking that the Pakistani's would use it to tackle AQ. They didn't. In some ways, it's similar to our decision to throw money to the banks thinking it would solve the average citizen's mortgage problem. It didn't. Instead, the banks consolidated and paid big bonuses. It's all human nature. Their perceived enemy is India, and they used the billions to build up their conventional forces along the eastern border of Kashmir. In the latter years of the Bush Administration, we finally started fixing that issue.
Second, I've never been to Pakistan, but I had the opportunity to go to school with a handful of their best and brightest Air Force and Army officers. They are highly competent- most have served in high intensity conflict, small wars, and peace-keeping missions. I have the utmost respect for them, but they don't view AQ as an existential threat like we do. AQ is third on their list. They've dealt with the non-governed FATA for nearly 50 years, and I think that this history sometimes blinds them into accepting that there are just some areas within their borders that will never be modernized.
Third, the Pakistanis are finally pushing into the ungoverned areas at a high cost. They've suffered several thousand casualties over the last several years that are unreported in the news.
They are good people and willing partners, and it is a sensitive subject on sovereignty. Personally, outside of the initial "outrage," I think the Pakistanis would accept and understand if we simply invaded the FATA to finally capture UBL and Zawahari and destroy AQ; however, we must be willing to spend the time, money, and effort to modernize the area in the aftermath.
Sometimes you have to listen past the static to understand the problem.
Just my .02 cents for what it's worth. I realize my voice is a minority.
v/r
Mike
Nah, just the garratroopers...
Of which there are too many -- what happens when you have a promotion system that rewards time in service and no disciplinary actions above all else....Every sergeant major would either immediately retire or be stricken with a heart attack if there were more of me running around.
AR 600-200 says all those SSG and above Boards select and the individual will be promoted unless his Commander writes a letter to pull for cause. Backwards. When you get to be Chief of staff, change it to say the individual will be promoted only when the Commander writes a letter concurring. Commanders will not take time to write letters for marginal people, so currently system, too many marginal folks get promoted -- change it and they won't...
Then you can go for broke with no fear of causing cardiac arrest...
Couldn't find Garret Trooper by Sadler..... but found Trooper's Lamentby him.....for all them super duper Paratroopers like Mike
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWJcg...eature=related
Found the lyrics but no sound yet.
Garet Trooper
by SSgt. Barry Sadler
This is dedicated to the parade field trooper
Who never leaves that nice soft garrison
And always looks real pretty
Now in the war torn jungles of Vietnam
You’ll find a certain kind of man
You’ll see him everywhere
He’s a trooper, a garet trooper
Yeah, he’s five foot four, 228 pounds of blubber
Got him a nickel plated 45 tied down low, quick draw holster
Two bandoliers of brasso-ed ammo
Yeah he’s a trooper, a garet trooper
He’s fought from Saigon to Ninh Thuan
In every bar that is, and then only with the girls
And he ain’t won one yet
But he’s a trooper, a garet trooper (garet trooper)
He’s got a hip knife, a side knife, a boot knife, a shoulder knife
And a little bitty one that’s a combination flare gun, dinner set,
and genuine police whistle
But he’s a trooper, a garet trooper
Now I run into one the other day, He told me a story,
He said he'd just this minute come back from
a fifteen day runnin’ fight with the Cong
Said he captured a lot of loot
You know what I saw when I looked down? A spit shined boot
Yeah, he’s a trooper, a garet trooper (garet trooper)
Now poor ole pilot come back today
Half his crew was killed, aircraft shot to hell
But he don’t say much
He’s not a trooper, a garet trooper
And out in the hills and the jungles and the swamps
Living like a bunch of dogs
Are some men wearing funny little green hats
They stay out there and fight for months on end
They don’t say much ‘cause they’re not troopers,
garet troopers (garet troopers)
And I bet finally, when I leave this war torn land
The last thing I’ll see will be,
though I may be in a drunken stupor
I bet it’ll be a garet trooper (garet trooper)
Yeah, they’re all over the place
Ain’t hardly worth going to war no more
Mike:
i stopped reading after the "We'd win" part. the rest didn't seem important.
general comments:
about the SGTs lack of people skills. there must be one guy in the squad who does have the people skills. why not let him handle the street interviews? and there must be a handful in the company, why not move them around so every patrol has one?
also i think most every successful small war, FID, coin, pacification etc, has established some kind of local self defense force. it may be more or less difficult in Afghanistan but i think it must be done.
"We fight, get beat, rise, and fight again." Gen. Nathanael Greene
The answers would suprise you, and I probably should address Ken's post on a seperate thread.
-My best private under hostile fire was grossly overweight. Seriously, he was super fat, but he never quit regardless of how much we pushed him. That's why I never chaptered him. However, he had a heart of gold. He deserved a silver star. I couldn't even give him an AAM b/c he never met height and weight standards. In four combat deployments, he was the best soldier that I ever served with. He just struggled with his weight.
-My best sergeant was a multiple-tour Fallujah battle type guy. He taught himself arabaic, learned the culture, and was a master photographer. After multiple patrols, he stayed up late in the night assisting me with intel analysis. He was turned down twice from the E-6 board b/c he didn't memorize some stupid Sh*t about protocal. After surviving ten IED blast, he finally had to take a knee.
Go back and watch the beginnings of "We were soldiers once, and young." Look at the misfits that Hal Moore picked for his crew.
v/r
Mike
The beginning of the movie ...
depicts the Death of Groupement Mobile No. 100 at the Battle of Mang Yang Pass (June 1954) and its aftermath. That unit (~ an RCT) was the elite of the French Far Eastern Expeditionary Forces; but most of them had just arrived from Korea - and didn't have a real clue about warfare in the Central Highlands. A lot of Marines had to exchange "colonialements" in another world. A real tragedy for the TdM (link to their article on DBP and this battle at the bottom of the Wiki).
Ken would have a competent opinion on the quality of Hal Moore's Bn. Based on reading the book, his guys didn't seem to be misfits. Of course, since Hal Moore was from That Place on the Hudson, anything is possible.
The relief Bn (second part of book) got clobbered, but not as bad as GM 100. Our KIAs (23 Oct - 26 Nov 1965) were 305 (234 in 4 days). One wonders what the MSM reaction today would be.
A somber topic.
Mike
Last edited by jmm99; 10-15-2009 at 04:49 AM.
Typical unit of the time, IMO.
No more misfits than most others. Marginally trained but there was a lot of that going around. Moore was a blowhard -- lot of that going around as well...Ken would have a competent opinion on the quality of Hal Moore's Bn. Based on reading the book, his guys didn't seem to be misfits. Of course, since Hal Moore was from That Place on the Hudson, anything is possible.
Missed the Ia Drang but worked with them in the aftermath of the battle at Trung Luong in June of 66 and for a few weeks afterward. Marshall discussed that fight in The Fields of Bamboo.
I don't think we should be shocked by that and I'm surprised that is what we expected them to do???
Good analogy. Although I would rather an American banker had my tax dollars than a PAK politician...well maybe not.In some ways, it's similar to our decision to throw money to the banks thinking it would solve the average citizen's mortgage problem. It didn't. Instead, the banks consolidated and paid big bonuses. It's all human nature. Their perceived enemy is India, and they used the billions to build up their conventional forces along the eastern border of Kashmir. In the latter years of the Bush Administration, we finally started fixing that issue.
Absolutely. Key phrase was best and brightest. Imagine if officers in foreign armies judged the U.S. by the caliber of our military officers...they sure would be disappointed when they met our politicians.Second, I've never been to Pakistan, but I had the opportunity to go to school with a handful of their best and brightest Air Force and Army officers. They are highly competent- most have served in high intensity conflict, small wars, and peace-keeping missions.
It's not really the military I'm concerned with. How much of our money did they see?I have the utmost respect for them, but they don't view AQ as an existential threat like we do. AQ is third on their list. They've dealt with the non-governed FATA for nearly 50 years, and I think that this history sometimes blinds them into accepting that there are just some areas within their borders that will never be modernized.
Well, that's good. What kind of progress have they made?Third, the Pakistanis are finally pushing into the ungoverned areas at a high cost. They've suffered several thousand casualties over the last several years that are unreported in the news.
I've always wondered if they would even care? They would probably just say "good luck".Personally, outside of the initial "outrage," I think the Pakistanis would accept and understand if we simply invaded the FATA to finally capture UBL and Zawahari and destroy AQ;
Funny you mention that...I watched Charlie Wilson's War last night.however, we must be willing to spend the time, money, and effort to modernize the area in the aftermath.
Sir, what the hell are we doing?
Speaking of Charlie Wilson some one told me he was asked about A'stan recently and his advice was to get out
Watched the show last night and I thought it was pretty good. Those Marines really do have a tough job considering the population they are supposed to protect basically got up and left. Kinda makes it hard to protect and engage with them.
The show brings to light a number of problems, in my estimation:
1. The population is very diffuse. One company in one village in one area is not going to cut it. Are 40k more troops, what Gen. McChrystal is asking for, enough to put a company in every village to prevent the population from simply displacing?
2. What about translators? If we can't get a competent translator for this one company, how are we going to support a much larger presence?
3. There is no Afghan face. Why isn't there at least some official government representative present at these meetings with villagers?
Overall, this documentary is not very encouraging.
Entropy ....
First a thanks (a week late) for your maps based on open-source reporting of incidents in the various Astan districts. It brings home the fact that Astan is no monolith; and that the country has to be analyzed on a district to district basis.Good job.
As to your questions,
here are some armchair thoughts.1. The population is very diffuse. One company in one village in one area is not going to cut it. Are 40k more troops, what Gen. McChrystal is asking for, enough to put a company in every village to prevent the population from simply displacing?
2. What about translators? If we can't get a competent translator for this one company, how are we going to support a much larger presence?
3. There is no Afghan face. Why isn't there at least some official government representative present at these meetings with villagers?
1. Based on World Bank stats, Kilcullen (TAG, p.47n.12) gives Astan 40,020 villages (love the exactness of that 20 villages). So, adding the 40K to what is there - and putting everyone out in the field (
2. Astan, as your maps point out, is not an ethnic monolith. Leaving aside all of the different languages and dialects of them in the "Northern Alliance" area (Dari is something of a lingua franca), look at Pashto (or Pakhto). There are four major dialect groups, in which different pronounciation of the middle consonent complex (e.g., -sht- vs -kht-) is the marker. The bottom line is that interpreters have to be somewhat local. As such, they stand a good chance of being whacked (to say nothing of their families), especially when we leave.
3. From the candid assesments I've read re: the judicial system and local governance, the judges, police, lawyers and local government officials are often hiding in the provincial capitals (preferred) or district capitals (less preferred, and sometimes denied).
Best to all
Mike
40,000 Villages
Entropy/JMM:
There are, perhaps, 40,020 "places" that could be identified as villages, but as you have done an excellent job of indicating, the problems in establishing a deployment strategy are localized, not ubiquitous.
Basic economic/social geography suggests a "hierarchy" of interconnections between "places," settlements, villages and towns that needs to be studied, in the critical areas, to align resources with geography. Where are the strategic places to be located? What are the linkages between these places?
I was concerned in the Frontline report that the patrols were wandering into small settlements where people were moving from one market to another, moving their families out of the way of the obvious hazards that logically arise if both Taliban and US forces will be confronting each other.
What concerned me is not that it was happening, but that, apparently, the squad and company was deploying and reacting to a logical human and geographic environment which they, apparently, did not understand.
Surely, a little bit of core background information about the land and its people could sharpen the effectiveness of these young soldiers' efforts.
Steve
Yes, especially the remark in the video about how they have to go to another market to get their flour!! That is a big interruption in daily life that they probably view the Marines as the cause of. Which is why I say the first critical items that should be supplied even if they are temporally supplied by the military are water,food,shelter,medical care. The situation should not be allowed to deteriorate while you are establishing security.
slapout:
Right, but even to do that, we have to start with some basic geographic info.
If you track the momentum of urbanization/rural abandonment, it is pretty clear that many of the 40,020 "places, like in Iraq, are simply abandoned settlements of a handful of buildings. (Great for bad guys, but of no importance to service delivery).
UN and the related mapping/pop agencies maintain records of these "places," but, a quick fly over or field assessment will show thounsands of them to be, in fact, abandoned.
So, take the 40,020, and knock it down to, say, 10,005 in the areas of interest; eliminate 33% as either abandoned settlements, or, so closely related to another village as to be a difference without a distinction; then, identify from the remaining 6,603 the critical geographic locations central to transportation, food and relief distribution, and there are probably, at best, about 2,000 places that warrant focus.
I would suggest that the 2,000 critical places for relief distribution are probably the same 2,000 that warrant consideration for military bases of some kind or another.
One of the great demographic assets in Iraq was the PDS system for food registration/distribution. 95% of the population was registered at some local registration/distribution point, allowing a lot more accuracy to population-based analysis and planning.
Food as a weapon for data? Food as a vehicle for centralizing, and thus, monitoring, populations?
Absolutely and medical aid as detailed human terrain analysis. don't know if it would work in 3rd world countries but water and electric bill analysis can produce some interesting Intelligence at least from an LE perspective.
There's always a down-side...
to any humanitarian missions...
- Food that gets pushed to feed the Taliban.
- Fertilizer that gets pushed to make bombs.
- Medicine that gets pushed to care for wounded Taliban.
- Weapons and ammo distributed for village protection that arms the Taliban.
If you're not living there, then you can assume the enemy takes anything you give out.
Mike
Mike I would assume that and I would be following all that which should help lead you to the enemy Infrastructure.
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks