So if I understand you correctly, you want to substitute the corrupt Afghan National Army for a "NATO auxiliary supply route protection force" composed of.....former members of the corrupt Afghan National Army, and bodies rented-out by tribal warlords?
“[S]omething in his tone now reminded her of his explanations of asymmetric warfare, a topic in which he had a keen and abiding interest. She remembered him telling her how terrorism was almost exclusively about branding, but only slightly less so about the psychology of lotteries…” - Zero History, William Gibson
Nasprofor!
First of all, let me thank you for asking for clarification because there is even more to this than first meets the eye.Originally Posted by bourbon
The ANA is institutionally corrupt because of the lack of accountability over how the money is spent.
That doesn't mean that all the individual Afghan soldiers are junkies, thieves, rapists, absconders, lazy, clueless, illiterate, phantom-names-existing-on-paper-only, Taliban-agents, green-on-blue-trigger-happy etc - just that Karzai gets paid more for more bums-in-uniform irrespective of the actual job they do and he who pays the piper doesn't call the tune here because as a national president we don't get to fire the Afghan president if we think he is corruptly misusing our money. Our sole method to account for how our money is used is to stop paying it over to Karzai to waste in the first place.
Now I have heard various stories from various sources as to the percentage of acceptable soldiers in the ANA and therefore I can't be specific as to what percentage would shape up for a real soldiering job. My purpose here is just to explain how we make up the numbers if there is a shortfall and there may not be.
NASPROFOR
For the "Nato Auxiliary Supply-route PROtection FORce" ("NASPROFOR") we'd pick the cream or at least the adequate soldiers from the ANA and if that is not as many as we need for the whole length of supply route we intend to defend then we certainly don't scrape the barrel and make do with poor or worse Afghan soldiers but recruit competent mercenaries perhaps from the surrounding countries which, just to list them, are India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and perhaps from countries further afield too.
Other factors come into play, for example, we know NATO relations with Iran are particularly tense at the moment so Iran may be the last country to ask to contribute mercenary troops for this new force because they may execute any Iranian mercenary who served NATO loyally or pretend to go along with NATO's plan but send undercover members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard to act as double agents, seeming to serve NASPROFOR but secretly allowing Iranian weapons to pass along or across the supply line to Iranian-backed terrorists to attack our supply lines, bases or indeed anything in Afghanistan they wanted to burn to the ground which may be a lot of it which has come under Western influence recently.
Consider hiring mercenaries whom we can get for the price of Afghan soldiers but who can actually do the job competently and loyally and we can get in the numbers we need to form cohesive infantry units, meaning soldiers and their officers need to be able to communicate with each other easily, at least in the lower enlisted ranks and junior officers up to rank of "Reaction Captain".
So for example, one could imagine an Uzbek-staffed NASPROFOR component manning a stretch of supply route near where the supply route approaches the Uzbek border.
"Bodies" are no good if they can't follow orders loyally and perform adequately in all the roles I have set out for the job. That's the test.
Last edited by Peter Dow; 04-24-2013 at 12:56 AM.
Road-side bombs again. We need a secure perimeter for the supply roads
Road-side bombs again guys and it's an attack that works for the Taliban just because we haven't secured the few main highways we must use by building a secure perimeter around the road - barbed wire, guard posts, minefields - and thereby keeping the enemy far away from the road at all times.Bombs Kill 3 NATO Troops, 9 Afghans
By AMIR SHAH Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan April 30, 2013 (AP)
Roadside bomb attacks in Afghanistan killed three NATO service members and nine Afghans on Tuesday, officials said, clear evidence that the insurgents' annual spring offensive is underway.
The service members died in southern Afghanistan, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said in a brief statement that provided no other information.
In another attack in the south of the country, a roadside bomb in the Shah Wali Kot district of Kandahar province killed three civilians and wounded five, said Jawed Faisal, a spokesman for the provincial governor.
The Taliban and other insurgent groups make heavy use of roadside bombs. They are among the deadliest weapons in the Afghan war for civilians.
In the north, in Archi district in the province of Kunduz, a roadside bomb killed two people, including a local police commander who had been credited with reducing the number of insurgent attacks in his area, said Abdul Nazar, a local council member.
Commander Miran and his driver were killed and two other police officers were wounded when the car they were driving toward Kunduz City was destroyed by a bomb hidden on the road, said Nazar. Like many Afghans, Miran only used one name.
On Tuesday evening, a roadside bomb exploded in Uruzgan province in central Afghanistan, killing four civilians in a car and wounding two, said police spokesman Fareed Ayal.
Instead, our generals have for years stuck with the same old bad patrolling plan and so the enemy just watches the road and after one patrol has passed and before the next patrol arrives, the enemy times it correctly to sneak up to the road and lay their road-side bombs.
The enemy can sneak up to the road so easily because they don't have to cross a minefield, they don't have to penetrate barbed wire and there isn't guard posts with guards with machine guns watching over the land either side of the road 24/7, defending the approaches to the road the whole length of the road.
Then the next patrol or some other vehicle later on comes along the road and gets blown up by the road-side bomb we failed to stop the enemy planting in the first place.
Here's what my solution to create a secure perimeter for the supply roads might look like.
Secure supply route border defences plan diagram (described in full in posts #4, #5 & #6)
Can you see how that brings the road "inside the wire"? That's a plan that could work to keep the main highways safe to use.
Mine is not a plan for the small side-roads far away from the highways. We don't have to use these side-roads to supply our main bases. We should only have our main bases next to the main supply roads. We should not have isolated bases which are difficult to supply. We need to abandon those isolated bases in bandit territory and fight the enemy there using air-power, aerial bombing, drones, attack helicopters, airborne raids and so on. There's no need to drive to those out-of-the-way hideouts the enemy has.
Last edited by Peter Dow; 05-01-2013 at 12:33 AM.
Obama's counsel of despair. US forces drawdown or ROUT?
Where is Obama's drawdown leading to for Afghanistan?
Could a feeling of strategic despair pervading the White House mean President Obama's drawdown plan could turn into an unseemly rout of US and other NATO-ISAF forces?
It looks to me like President Obama is getting some "Dark Counsel" as regards pulling out from Afghanistan.New York Times: U.S. Considers Faster Pullout in Afghanistan
President Obama, frustrated in his dealings with President Karzai, is considering speeding up troop withdrawals from Afghanistan and even leaving no American troops after 2014
WASHINGTON —
Mr. Obama is committed to ending America’s military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and Obama administration officials have been negotiating with Afghan officials about leaving a small “residual force” behind. But his relationship with Mr. Karzai has been slowly unraveling, and reached a new low after an effort last month by the United States to begin peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
Mr. Karzai promptly repudiated the talks and ended negotiations with the United States over the long-term security deal that is needed to keep American forces in Afghanistan after 2014.
A videoconference between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai designed to defuse the tensions ended badly, according to both American and Afghan officials with knowledge of it. Mr. Karzai, according to those sources, accused the United States of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and their backers in Pakistan, leaving Afghanistan’s fragile government exposed to its enemies.
First to explain the phrase "Dark Counsel". Have you seen Lord of the Rings? Remember King Theoden and his adviser, Grima Wormtongue, who told him he was weak, could not fight and hope to win, turned out Grima was secretly an agent for Saruman?
OK remember now? That's "dark counsel".
So who is giving Obama, "dark counsel", who is his Grima Wormtongue?
Well maybe a lady called Robin Raphel, a former agent for Pakistan, a Washington Lobbyist in the pay of the Pakisan state. Obama has taken her on into her team, in charge of non-military aid to Pakistan, that's billions of dollars worth.
Raphel is the enemy within. I would not let this woman within a mile of the White House, but there again, I'm not King Theoden, I mean, President Obama.
YouTube: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) - Gandalf Releases Theoden
The best outcome for America would be to sucker the Chinese into running the show AND paying for it.
The best outcome for the Chinese would be to have America pay for it, Pakistan to supply warm bodies and China to get whatever it is that people imagine they can get out of that region.
The likeliest outcome is that America pays for it and nobody benefits except a few people who manage to stash cash in Dubai and time their exit correctly..
As an American, I think Obama may be right. Avoid the sunk costs fallacy. Cut your losses and leave. Let Allah sort them out.
As a Pakistani, I think the aftermath will be long and bloody. I wish the CIA had actually succeeded in whatever nefarious conspiracy they were up to. Their failure will embarrass them ,but it will terminate a lot of poor people in Afghanistan and Pakistan (and probably India...bakrey kee maan kab tak khair manaey gi...how long will the goat's mother stay lucky in all this?). With maximum prejudice.
Of course I hope I am wrong. I hope some brilliant new plan from Washington will actually work. One can always hope.
Well unlike
- in Pakistan where the Pakistani military intelligence agency, the ISI, doesn't answer to the civilian government but is a part of the independent Pakistani military, which maintains a political role and often imposes a military dictatorship upon Pakistanis and whose ISI is a tool of the military's imperial ambitions, in this context sponsoring an irregular, auxiliary or paramilitary force, the Taliban, to regain Afghanistan as a vassal state of the Pakistani military empire
the CIA does answer to the elected president, it follows the orders of the government, under the law and the constitution of the USA.
As an American you ought to know that. As a Pakistani, you may not know truth from fiction so often have you been lied to by the Pakistani state.
So whilst conspiracy nuts like you may imply that the CIA is an independent unaccountable power with its own political agenda, it is not.
The invasion of Afghanistan was as it was declared to be according to the Bush Doctrine, to go after those who did 9/11 - both the terrorists and their state sponsors.
What we are seeing is an American (and British and NATO) political failure to go to 2nd base with the Bush Doctrine, to follow the trail of intelligence evidence identifying the 9/11 culprits and the Taliban enemy as sponsored by the Pakistani ISI and therefore showing the Pakistani state to be a state sponsor of Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorism.
Here again is the BBC Panorama documentary, "Secret Pakistan" which presents the evidence of Pakistani state sponsoring of terrorism, this time in 2 x 1 hour videos.
SECRET PAKISTAN - Part 1 - Double Cross (YouTube)
SECRET PAKISTAN - Part 2 - Backlash (YouTube)
So there's a political failure to hold Pakistan accountable for 9/11 and the deaths of our forces in Afghanistan.
So the US and NATO government trend is towards doing less than the Bush Doctrine would imply and simply going home, the job half done. That's not a "conspiracy", it is losing focus, abandoning the mission, letting the Pakistani state which hosted Al Qaeda and the Taliban, killed thousands of our people, off the hook.
Now I don't agree with abandoning the mission - I want the Afghan mission converted into an openly Afghanistan-Pakistan mission. That's my politics but I am not part of a CIA or state conspiracy because I am just this guy, you know?
Last edited by Peter Dow; 07-15-2013 at 03:34 AM.
Peter,
what is meant by your usage of "to hold Pakistan accountable" ? Are you suggesting that the US use armed force (pursuant to the 2001 AUMF) against Pakistan ? If so, from where and by what means ?
Regards
Mike
NATO tribute video to Pakistan Air Force: Don't Stop Me Now!
BBC: Pakistan jets bomb Taliban positions in North Waziristan (YouTube)
NATO tribute to Pakistan Air Force: "Don't Stop Me Now!" (YouTube)Washington Post:
Deadly Pakistani airstrikes target militants believed responsible for recent attacks
By Haq Nawaz Khan and Tim Craig, Published: January 21
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s military launched airstrikes in its restive tribal areas on Tuesday, killing 40 suspected militants, in an attempt to combat terrorist attacks that are escalating across the country.
Tribal elders, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they feared reprisal from militants, said the strikes appeared more accurate than previous such efforts.
The local elders said that the home of Adnan Rashid, a senior Taliban commander, was hit and his family members were injured, but that he escaped unhurt. Another strike, on al-Noor Mosque in the village of Essorhi, killed 15 people — all reportedly militants, according to the elders.
“So this time the army gunships and jet fighters are accurately targeting the militants,” one elder from the town of Mir Ali said in a phone interview.
The strikes, among the heaviest bombardments of the tribal areas in several years, were conducted in the aftermath of a suicide bombing Sunday that killed 20 Pakistani soldiers. On Monday, 13 people were killed in a blast at a market near army headquarters in Rawalpindi. And Tuesday, three people administering polio vaccinations were fatally shot in Karachi, and at least 20 Shiite pilgrims were killed when an explosion tore through their bus in the country’s southwest.
The military airstrikes began late Monday over a troubled area of North Waziristan, a hotbed for Pakistani and foreign militants near the Afghan border. According to local officials and the Reuters news service, it was the first time the military had carried out airstrikes in North Waziristan since a cease-fire deal with local Taliban leaders in 2007.
Military officials said those killed in the strikes included militants suspected of carrying out a bombing in September that killed 85 people at a church in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Although some of the elders interviewed said that many of those killed were Taliban militants, area residents said there also were numerous civilian casualties. They said they and their families were fleeing the area because they feared for their safety.
“Can you hear the noise of the gunships? They are just over our heads,” Haji Jamaluddin, a resident, told Reuters by phone. “Everyone in the village is running around with children and women, looking for a safe place to hide.”
The strikes, which followed smaller military operations in tribal areas in recent weeks, could be a sign that Pakistan’s new army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, plans to take a harder line against militants. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif appointed him in late November to head the country’s nuclear-armed, 550,000-member military. The two men share a last name but are not related.
The prime minister has been pushing to hold peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, which has waged a decade-long insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives. But those talks have yet to materialize. In the meantime, former military officials say, the country’s top generals — faced with rising violence — have been pushing for more decisive action.
Way to go Pakistan!A friend of NATO, the AfPak Mission presents a tribute to the Pakistan Air Force in recognition of air strikes against the Taliban, enemy of mankind, from January 2014 - "Don't stop me now!"
No peace with the Taliban.
The only "good" Taliban is a dead Taliban.
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