Green on Blue: causes and responses (merged thread)

[carl]

Mmmm. To an extent but we have significant philosophical differences and when that's added to the experience variations, it's more than different words and angles... I

No, you're wrong. We're about the same, except I cock my hat forward and you cock yours to the rear.

I doubt the frequent murders will cause a withdrawal. I also suspect that the friction involved in those other situations was seen as less benign than it is looked at historically.

We'll see if the murders will 'cause a premature and precipitate bug out. I think they will but time will tell.

I am quite sure that in those other situations things weren't so benign. But the point isn't that they were all tea cakes and teary eyed farewells, the point is they didn't result in this level of murder.

There are other problems. Take KATUSAs for example, their baser options were constrained by very, very rigid, almost sadistic ROK Army discipline -- the Afghans don't operate that way. The Moros in the Constabulary were constrained by their Chiefs and Imams. The Afghans have Elders and Imams but Afghan culture is far more individualistic and less communitarian; those community leaders are heeded pretty much only when it suits.

Why are those things problems? Problems with what?

Perhaps you missed it in your reading but things always go poorly for us in every war -- and the lower the intensity of those wars, the longer it takes us to learn and get down to business. So, your statement is correct -- we will not change and if we get into difficulties with the Chinese, things will go poorly for us. Only when we bring masses of people into the forces and they and the enemy of the moment FORCE new thinking do we start improving (Note that not since we were in WW II have we faced an enemy significant enough and / or with capability to force that; not once since 1945). As I said, you and I can wish as much as we want to but that is not going to change...

I miss almost everything in my reading. But once in a while things stick, especially after I go back and read it again and again.

One of the things I didn't miss was that in the past, we started off bad but seemed to learn more quickly than we do now. The Philippines is an example. We started out not so good but basically pacified the islands (Bob's World: I know what you are going to say) in just a few years. Those were the days when a Lt. could pass a paper up and have it read and actually acted upon.

We can't seem to do that now. We seem to make the same mistakes for generation after generation. I just finished No Sure Victory and its thesis-that the Army was pre-occupied with meaningless measurements, metrics, for their own sake-seems to me to be as valid today as then.

One of the other things I picked up from my reading (it took six books read twelve times to do it) is that we had a lot of time to make up for some of our unpreparedness and that time was given to us by things that aren't there anymore. The Royal Navy isn't there anymore. The potential adversary in the Pacific doesn't have an economy much smaller and more backward anymore. The Red Army won't be fighting against the enemy too anymore. The upshot of all this is we won't have to time to get it right in the midst of the fight anymore. I think it is complacency to believe that we will.

I cannot dictate what the world or most Americans (including you, apparently -- or do you??? ) believe they see. Nor am I much concerned about them or that -- it does not change the reality, if they miss that, it's a lick on them...

They act upon what they see. So what they see is that the US has been there for 11 years. They aren't going to say that "Oh well, you're right. I see it now. We've been there once, 11 times. Why in that case I'll judge the thing entirely differently." They aren't going to say that. We, the US, have been there for 11 years.

Well, maybe you do see but you're still living in a dream world. Yes, it can be changed but while to you there is cause for such change to be forced, I can assure you that most of the political and military establishment and most definitely the Congress do NOT see it that way. It can be changed but it will not be.

You would like my dream world. The Coca-Cola is always cold, but not too and it is served by smiling women with wonderous hip to waist ratios with large..., anyway like there ain't no gravity there. And there is always a tailwind and I never miss a prarie dog, ever. You should come.

Like I said, we mostly always agree. Just check your last sentence.

Given the significant problems with the Health Care and Legal industries, you'll pardon me if I find that allegory totally laughable. That doesn't mean the upper echelons of the Military are good or even marginally competent, they are not (and anyone who believes that is not a systemic problem isn't really looking at why it's that way...) -- but simply that the Medical and Legal profession are little if any better and IMO anyone who thinks they are needs to undertake deeper study of all three.

That is what I do, bring laughter to the world. But the health care industry isn't run by docs, it is run by MBAs. But in any event lawyers and docs have ethical standards that most of them are quite serious about. And the prospect of losing license or being disbarred for not meeting those standards is taken very seriously by them. Some of them, many of them maybe, aren't so good, but enough are that docs are highly respected and parents still are quite happy when their children go into the law.

Most of them know what's wrong, however, they are systemically constrained and cannot do what you wish. Since I strongly disagree on the levels of professionalism of the docs and lawyers -- and at my age and with my background, I bet I've had far more dealings with both those than you have -- I'll simply point out that all three professions have systemic constraints that limit their ability to truly force change and increase effectiveness. It is what it is and the best approach is to live with it and try to circumvent those systemic thin gs to the extent possible.

You're wrong about the level of professionalism of lawyers and docs vs. the stars and multi-stars. There are legions of lawyers who will fight other lawyers on matters of law and basic justice. Docs upend the conventional practice of medicine on a regular basis. That is how the field progresses. Our multi-stars in my view, remember that I am dreamy and miss a lot, fight tooth and claw to maintain the status-quo. I don't ever see any star or multi-star saying, "Boy did we screw up." of "Boy was that guy an idiot." The lower down officers will say that, but not the high boys. If that has happened regularly, I missed it again.

Then you have missed the most important point in this sub-thread. Violence in problem solving leads to feuds. A history of such conflicts while present to an extent in some of the other culture herein mentioned (to include us in the West and in the US in particular) is, in Afghanistan which has not undergone the leavening / 'civilizing' processes of most modern nations including the Philippines, literally defines the Afghans. The propensity to get hacked off at a slight, real or perceived and take violent reprisal action is deeply embedded due to that lack of leavening. You or I get insulted, we may get angry, may even get even -- but neither of us is likely to have first thoughts of the offending person being dead at our feet. Some gang bangers here operate that way but not too many of even those; in Afghanistan, it is the norm. It can and likely will be changed but it'll take more than has occurred in the last 50 years there to cause that change.

Well, I do miss a lot. But no, I haven't missed the point. While all you say may be true, it is beside the point. It is a given. That is the way those guys are. We went over there and we decided to do what we have done. If we haven't taken what they are like into account, that is our fault. And it is a failure of the professional military. What training should have been done wasn't. What units should have been doing the training weren't. The counter intelligence that should have seen some of this coming didn't. What limits on troop behavior that should have been emplaced (sic) and enforced weren't. Shoot, some of this may have been caused because Afghans are offended by cursing. It may be smirking fashionable to say that is impossible to control but it isn't. That it wasn't seen to be important and controlled is a failure of the professional military that may have cost lives.

Sometimes it seems to me that this problem is being presented as an inevitability. I don't think it was inevitable. I think we did an awful lot to bring it on ourselves. The trouble with presenting it as inevitable is that that is a cop-out. It is an excuse for and a rationalization of human failure, avoidable human failure. Improvement can't come unless it is acknowledged that things indeed can be improved. Viewing these things as inevitable is just throwing up hands and saying "Don't blame me. Nothing could have been done anyway." That's a cop-out.