Why forget it? You are making a claim that is, basically, indefensible unless you are willing to extend it to other "causes" of death in the US. Would you make the same claim against the use of force in securing oil fields even though there are 40,000+ deaths per year due to car accidents in the US?
Let's go back to another component of your argument that you made earlier:
.My position is that it is not with the restrictions placed on the US and Brit armies in Afghanistan. Rules of engagement and (horrifyingly) increasingly attitudes of officers (some displayed around here) which are more suited to work with the Peacecorps than with an army at war.
Then inexplicably the US have appeared to forgotten the simple lesson they learned in Vietnam - where a segment of their Viet Cong enemy were 'farmers by day, soldiers by night'. (If they have not forgotten then they have no #*!# idea how to deal with that)
This comes back to the need - IMHO - to use proxies who can fight by the same lack of rules as the Taliban. Use of such tactics or methods would not be possible for use by US or Brit forces. (Nor would - most likely - the US Congress allow such proxies to kill in the name of the US)
First off, the socio-technical context of Afghanistan is quite different from that of Vietnam. I truly doubt that the "lessons" have been forgotten. Instead, I would argue that the "solutions" have been rendered impossible - and don't forget that the US lost Vietnam. Even if we draw on the lessons of Malasia, which could be argued as a limited "win", those solutions are still impossible in the current socio-technical regime.
Two points here:
- Force levels
- International law
ISAF does not, and is unlikely ever to have, sufficient force levels to actually monitor down to the village level. That was why this silliness with VSO was created. Second, international law precludes using overt proxies to commit actions that are chargable as war crimes. Look at the Canadian experience with handing over detainees to the Afghan government and where that left the CF.
Cheers,
Marc
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
No, that's no better than a high school level argument. So I need to be careful because I don't know how old you are.
For those with a greater grasp of the situation it would be clear that while the incidence of road traffic accident deaths/alcohol related deaths/deaths from smoking are (or should be) a major cause for concern back in the US the US and Brit politicians and their military general staff have the ability and the means to take action to significantly reduce the 90% of the heroin production in the world coming out of Afghanistan. Not to do so is criminal negligence.
The simple question must be asked why the US government (under both Bush and Obama) have chosen to cosy up to an obviously corrupt and democratically illegitimate regime ... together with scum of the earth druglords and warlords who infest the country.
I appreciate there is no simple answer to this question so the standard response is either silence or the cute (but somewhat childish) stuff I am dealing with now.
You see this is what happens when civilians make the leap of arrogance in deluding themselves that they understand all about wars and how best to approach specific problems.First off, the socio-technical context of Afghanistan is quite different from that of Vietnam. I truly doubt that the "lessons" have been forgotten. Instead, I would argue that the "solutions" have been rendered impossible - and don't forget that the US lost Vietnam. Even if we draw on the lessons of Malasia, which could be argued as a limited "win", those solutions are still impossible in the current socio-technical regime.
Two points here:
- Force levels
- International law
ISAF does not, and is unlikely ever to have, sufficient force levels to actually monitor down to the village level. That was why this silliness with VSO was created. Second, international law precludes using overt proxies to commit actions that are chargable as war crimes. Look at the Canadian experience with handing over detainees to the Afghan government and where that left the CF.
Cheers,
Marc
First off, I repeat, the error was made to turn the rout of the Taliban into a nation building exercise. George Bush has a lot to answer for in this regard.
Now while troops are there they should at least attempt to the job they are there for (if they know what it is, that is). It is not a simple case of troop numbers it is more how the troops are used. (Hint: go read up how the Romans managed to 'control' an empire with relatively few troops)
If the problem with the Taliban was that they harboured AQ and then refused to hand OBL and others over to the US (thus providing a much needed pretext - and target - for the the US to strike out post 9/11) then on the positive side were their attempts to curb poppy production in Afghanistan.
Yes one understands that if the US were to go after the druglords and poppy production (in addition to the Taliban) it would mean that they would be at war with just about everyone in Afghanistan with their only (temporary) friends being those with pockets full from the indiscriminate and poorly controlled distribution of US aid money.
The balance of your comment is quite silly.
First I challenge you or anyone to establish how much currently serving officers and NCOs actually understand about the 'lessons' from Vietnam or other insurgencies. Just as if you did the same with Brits about the 'lessons' out of Malaysia and Kenya I suggest it will be sure to be an eye opener.
My alternative was that they (given the self imposed RoE) they have no idea how to deal with the Taliban.
You need to define how you see 'win' in this circumstance. Of course you seem to believe you have already considered that all the solutions have been rendered impossible. Now if you had qualified that with the words: "politically and legally acceptable to the US and European countries" you may be onto something. This is an important point.
Those of us who have actually fought a counterinsurgency war quickly come to realise that our inability to descend to the levels of depraved barbarity against the civilian population that the insurgents invariably do means effectively our best hope is for a negotiated settlement.
This applies to those who had some human restraint and in the absence of laws some conscience.
This does not of course apply to the likes of Robert Mugabe and his North Korean trained 5th Brigade who through butchering civilians in quantities of tens of thousands effectively poisoned the water (the people) in which the Ndebele 'dissidents' (the fish) moved (swam). That solution worked - and I did say (go read what I wrote) using proxies would be problematic in any circumstances but obviously impossible if a 'gukurahundi' solution was considered.
Then move onto Sri Lanka. After years of pussy-footing around with the Tamil Tigers finally figured it out (with a little help from the Chinese).
Now look at Syria.
So yes there is international law for those who bother with it. The Russians, Chinese and those nations under their tutelage don't give a damn.
In fact the Taliban have become so adept at exploiting the weaknesses in ISAF military capacity that they taken themselves out of the iron-age to giant killer status as they give ISAF the run around.
The problem is that the more clueless 'academics' start to voice uninformed opinion on matters of warfare the greater the chances are that the politicians may just listen to them with further catastrophic consequences.
More people should read Edward Luttwak as a balance to the current nonsense been peddled around.
Post 183 onwards to here have been relocated here from a long running thread on Human Terrain Teams (HTT), some may appear out of context so have a peek at their former place:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...t=4093&page=41
davidbfpo
Try logic instead of ad hominen attacks.
No, it is not "criminal negligence" as you state. It may be irresponsible, but it is not criminal, and it just highlights why your claim is ridiculous. Would you argue that since US and Brit politicians have the ability and means to reduce deaths by car accident, and they do, that they are criminally negligent in not doing so? If you would, then I have to wonder what criminal code you are referring to.
Well, I never said that it wasn't an error .
I am quite familiar with how the Romans managed their empire both militarily and politically. I am also well aware that it is not a simple matter of numbers; although there are minimum numbers necessary to do what you suggested, and those numbers where not available in Afghanistan.
I will certainly grant you that the US rationale for being in Afghanistan has changed over the years. Also, since the US has adopted the somewhat irrational goal of stating that their strategic rationale is to deny facilities to AQ etc. as their current rationale, there are some quite serious problems, many of which are exacerbated by US domestic politics.
And why do you say that the balance of my comment is silly? Is it because you know what you know and facts have nothing to do with it?
Try reading something about logic and look up the Rule of the Excluded Third. I have probably read more AARs, from the Brits, Americans and Canadians than most people, and it is quite obvious that the actual amount of lessons learned from Vietnam, etc., is fairly low. That said, that same apparent ignorance needs to be put into a domestic political context where 'strategies" are often defined and imposed by politicians who have no concept of military operations and don't care about anything beyond the next election. Who do you think imposes the RoE's on the troops?
That was implied, but I probably should have spelled it out.
Again, go study some basic logic and ask yourself what effect such actions would have on the general population once they were demobbed.
Mugabe is a psychotic and, in this instance, a red herring.
The Tamil Tigers are an interesting example but, I have to wonder, how appropriate to a discussion of Afghanistan. Are we likely to the the ANA pushing the Taliban into a pocket and annihilating them? Probably not, and ISAF forces are not likely to do so either since a) they are not the government and b) they can't get access to FATA. The Tigers, you'll note, didn't have a safe haven, while the Taliban do.
As far as Syria is concerned, it appears to be turning into a multi-sided proxy fight. There are potential analogs with Afghanistan, but I would be very careful about them.
So what? The US and the Brits do. Deal with what is rather than what you might wish to be.
Sigh. Of course, the Soviets were nothing but Bronze Age barbarians. I have many problems with how ISAF has handled their campaign, but the ability to exploit Western weaknesses has been know for a long time, so I wouldn't give the Taliban more than their due.
Politicians listen only to themselves and their political advisers. Their choice to "adopt" the views of academics or military people people is undertaken solely on whether or not those people's ideas match the politicians preconceptions. Any competent student of practical politics knows this.
And anyone who knows Byzantine history will agree that his "thoughts" on that are singularly uninformed.
Sic Bisquitus Disintegrat...
Marc W.D. Tyrrell, Ph.D.
Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies,
Senior Research Fellow,
The Canadian Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies, NPSIA
Carleton University
http://marctyrrell.com/
The rate of car accident deaths in the US have nothing to do with the cycle from poppy cultivation in Afghanistan to heroin death in the US and the opportunities for at source eradication.
I noticed that you deleted the following from my post, I presume to avoid having to attempt an answer. One more time then:
You want to try and answer this? If you don't I'll understand.The simple question must be asked why the US government (under both Bush and Obama) have chosen to cosy up to an obviously corrupt and democratically illegitimate regime ... together with scum of the earth druglords and warlords who infest the country.
LOL.. According to Edward Girardet the book Killing the Cranes, the Bush administration paid 43 million dollar 'eradication' reward payment to the Taliban in 2001 when production was reduced to minimal quantities. Then he lets poppy production blossom after he has run the Taliban out of town.No, it is not "criminal negligence" as you state. It may be irresponsible, but it is not criminal, and it just highlights why your claim is ridiculous.
So call it interesting/unusual/strange/bizarre/crazy/suspicious/irresponsible/negligent/criminally-negligent/or whatever. Lets settle for 'criminally negligent incompetence' shall we?
I asked you nicely to drop the school boy level argument. Your linkage here is ridiculous (your word).Would you argue that since US and Brit politicians have the ability and means to reduce deaths by car accident, and they do, that they are criminally negligent in not doing so? If you would, then I have to wonder what criminal code you are referring to.
Criminal as an adjective.
Cute answer but did you ever voice an opinion on that somewhere, anywhere?Well, I never said that it wasn't an error
I guess I'll have to take your word for it.I am quite familiar with how the Romans managed their empire both militarily and politically.
Well then you may wish to explain how you failed to connect the dots?
How would you calculate the numbers required for any of the possible 'solutions' that have been muted?I am also well aware that it is not a simple matter of numbers; although there are minimum numbers necessary to do what you suggested, and those numbers where not available in Afghanistan.
I did not suggest anything other than it is more about how the troops are used than the mere numbers deployed in theatre.
You don't really know much about this stuff do you?
The politicians (and their advisors from academia) haven't got a clue. It is to the eternal discredit of primarily the US Joint Chiefs (and also the Brit general staff) that the facts and the implications of the political decisions were not brought home forcefully to their political masters.I will certainly grant you that the US rationale for being in Afghanistan has changed over the years. Also, since the US has adopted the somewhat irrational goal of stating that their strategic rationale is to deny facilities to AQ etc. as their current rationale, there are some quite serious problems, many of which are exacerbated by US domestic politics.
I was being polite. You clearly know nothing about force level calculations and you apply 'law' as it applies to conduct of war but ignore 'law' as it applies to drug production/trafficking/etc. Selective and silly.And why do you say that the balance of my comment is silly? Is it because you know what you know and facts have nothing to do with it?
Boy, you are so clever.Try reading something about logic and look up the Rule of the Excluded Third.
Again I'll have to take your word for it... but tell me, as reading is one thing and comprehension is quite another, what did you actually glean from all that reading?I have probably read more AARs, from the Brits, Americans and Canadians than most people,
That's what I said... and that is at general staff level and it gets a whole worse when it comes down to those actually deployed on ops in Afghanistan.... and it is quite obvious that the actual amount of lessons learned from Vietnam, etc., is fairly low.
Neither do the academic advisors to the politicians know diddly... that is why it is up to the Joint Chiefs to 'explain' what can and can't be done by the military and when to deploy the Peace Corps instead. (It has become clear that when needed the Joint Chiefs do not have the moral courage to stand up for the men of the military and place their careers and pensions ahead of the good of the military - the US system sucks).That said, that same apparent ignorance needs to be put into a domestic political context where 'strategies" are often defined and imposed by politicians who have no concept of military operations and don't care about anything beyond the next election. Who do you think imposes the RoE's on the troops?
Again I'll have to take your word for it won't I.That was implied, but I probably should have spelled it out.
Ok... obviously you didn't understand. So one more time then, I said:Again, go study some basic logic and ask yourself what effect such actions would have on the general population once they were demobbed.
Now let me help you here (as one who has actually been at the sharp end).Those of us who have actually fought a counterinsurgency war quickly come to realise that our inability to descend to the levels of depraved barbarity against the civilian population that the insurgents invariably do means effectively our best hope is for a negotiated settlement.
This applies to those who had some human restraint and in the absence of laws some conscience.
Using the examples I listed it is actually quite simple to defeat an insurgency if a state is prepared to adopt the methods of (most) insurgents and use methods against the population which out-terrorise the insurgents.
Could ISAF use such methods to 'win the hearts and minds' of the population? Of course not. How do you think the Taliban reduced poppy cultivation by 2001? Kind words and crop replacement programs? No, the gave the population the gypsies warning and the population knew to take it seriously. What threat could ISAF make that would be taken seriously?
[split into two due to length of posting restrictions]
Continued as part two:
OK, so you don't know about Gukurahundi. Mugabe ended an insurgency by making the population turn against the insurgents out of a justifiable fear for their own lives. Relevant, in that it was a repeat from successful COIN methods of successful empires of the past. But then you say you know all about Roman history yet seem to have missed this simple fact?
I guess like I'm wondering how car accident rates in the US are appropriate to drug production originating in Afghanistan? (Sorry, couldn't resist that but in so doing lowered myself to your high school debating level.)The Tamil Tigers are an interesting example but, I have to wonder, how appropriate to a discussion of Afghanistan.
You are either trying to be cute or you quite frankly don't have a clue.Are we likely to the the ANA pushing the Taliban into a pocket and annihilating them? Probably not, and ISAF forces are not likely to do so either since a) they are not the government and b) they can't get access to FATA. The Tigers, you'll note, didn't have a safe haven, while the Taliban do.
You missed the key 'change' at policy level when "Rajapaksa promised his troops that the war would end only with the LTTE’s elimination and Prabhakaran’s capture or death." So the nation aim changed from peace talks to military victory. Now having said that you should be able to follow the dots from there. Oh yes, and the self righteous West is still wailing and gnashing its teeth over the war crimes and human rights abuses but as far as Sri Lanka is concerned the the 26 odd year war is over and they are safe in the lovingly protective arms of China.
So what is the ISAF aim in Afghanistan (the current one that is)? Are they wanting to win (still waiting for your definition of 'win') or are have they admitted defeat and trying to slide out with the minimum of fuss?
You miss the point again (I mean its three strikes and you are out).As far as Syria is concerned, it appears to be turning into a multi-sided proxy fight. There are potential analogs with Afghanistan, but I would be very careful about them.
But I'll continue for this post. Hint: what did daddy do in 1982? Has that aqnd the support of Russia and China got anything to do with the current approach? Is he handing out soccer balls and pencils or is he intent to crush the insurgency?
So what? You ask 'so what?'So what? The US and the Brits do. Deal with what is rather than what you might wish to be.
What that means is that the US and the Brits should not get into conflicts they can't win.
I quote Colin Powell from his autobiography ‘My American Journey’, “Many of my generation of Vietnam-era officers vowed that when our turn came to call the shots, we would not quietly acquiesce in half-hearted warfare for half-baked reasons that the American people could not understand.”
Get the idea?
LOL... you poor long suffering dear.Sigh.
You need to give them their due that they have the initiative, they are well funded from local sources (including the US tax-payer) and their use IEDs (and ISAFs inability to effectively counter them) is in reality a war winner.Of course, the Soviets were nothing but Bronze Age barbarians. I have many problems with how ISAF has handled their campaign, but the ability to exploit Western weaknesses has been know for a long time, so I wouldn't give the Taliban more than their due.
Obviously. They surround themselves with their coterie and disregard the rest. I say again it is up to the Joint Chiefs to show moral courage and stand up to the politicians when necessary - even at the cost of their careers.Politicians listen only to themselves and their political advisers. Their choice to "adopt" the views of academics or military people people is undertaken solely on whether or not those people's ideas match the politicians preconceptions. Any competent student of practical politics knows this.
...and you be one of them... lol.And anyone who knows Byzantine history will agree that his "thoughts" on that are singularly uninformed.
PS: wonderful logical fallacy that, got a name for it?
What options have they got? The US doesn't have the capacity to create a non-corrupt democratically legitimate regime in Afghanistan. Short of letting the Taliban have the place or the non-option of taking over and running it as a colony, what else would you have them do?The simple question must be asked why the US government (under both Bush and Obama) have chosen to cosy up to an obviously corrupt and democratically illegitimate regime ... together with scum of the earth druglords and warlords who infest the country.
Personally, I don't think the US should ever have gotten involved in prolonged occupation, installing governments, or attempts at "nation-building", but it's a little late for that.
The key word here is "cycle". The question is what point of that cycle is the most efficient and economical target for intervention. Given the cost of military intervention in Afghanistan, I'd suggest that we'd be better off attacking the cycle where it's actually under our control, and we can do it with our own government, rather than having to either work though a completely dysfunctional government elsewhere.The rate of car accident deaths in the US have nothing to do with the cycle from poppy cultivation in Afghanistan to heroin death in the US and the opportunities for at source eradication.
US drug policy has for years been based on the utterly boneheaded notion that supply creates demand, that the people who buy drugs are innocent victims who need to be helped and the people who sell them are the evil ones who must be punished. That policy has left demand unchecked and has constrained supply just enough to make the business incredibly profitable. Of course as long as the demand and the profit are there, somebody somewhere will produce the stuff. The basic force driving the business is not supply, but demand. Trying to blame Mexican cartels (we're already being told we have to "do COIN" in Mexico) or Afghan growers for a problem that starts within our own borders is utterly counterproductive: until the US gets serious about addressing demand, any "solution" will be stopgap at best.
Last edited by Dayuhan; 04-07-2012 at 07:30 AM.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”
H.L. Mencken
Second point first. Yes we appear to agree that the switch to nation building was a major error in judgement.
IMHO there were two Afghan related incidents along the timeline which would have/should have prompted a US/NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan.
* when it was realized that the Karzai regime irredeemably corrupt.
* when the second? election was obviously rigged.
It was time to withdraw recognition of the Karzai regime (as they should do for all non-democratic countries) and downgrade their diplomatic contact (there is a term for this I am in too much of a hurry to look up)
In concert with that a strategic withdrawal (or a better word; extraction) of troops would take place. The Karzai regime was never worth the lives and limbs of US or any ISAF servicemen.
And obviously one such point (but obviously not the only one) is where you have 100,000 troops and the crop in the field. That's a no brainer.The key word here is "cycle". The question is what point of that cycle is the most efficient and economical target for intervention. Given the cost of military intervention in Afghanistan, I'd suggest that we'd be better off attacking the cycle where it's actually under our control, and we can do it with our own government, rather than having to either work though a completely dysfunctional government elsewhere.
That said one understands soldiers have to prioritize their tasks and focus one one enemy at a time. As per Mark Moyer in his paper ‘The Third Way of COIN: Defeating the Taliban in Sangin’ on 3/5 Marines approach in Sangin in 2010:
Sadly the situation in Sangin has never reached that of 'adequate security' for 'robust counternarcotics measures' to be undertaken (even if the will was there).The Marines decided that they had too many enemies already to engage in large-scale counternarcotics activities. Much of the population depended on the opium industry for its livelihood, and could be expected to cling to insurgency more strongly if that livelihood were at stake. Counternarcotics could wait until the government had enough personnel and adequate security to undertake robust counternarcotics measures.
Sounds good but you miss the obvious link between availability and use. Anyway as drugs in the states is a trillion dollar industry you don't really believe that corruption in that regard has not reached the highest levels of politics/government/law enforcement do you?US drug policy has for years been based on the utterly boneheaded notion that supply creates demand, that the people who buy drugs are innocent victims who need to be helped and the people who sell them are the evil ones who must be punished. That policy has left demand unchecked and has constrained supply just enough to make the business incredibly profitable. Of course as long as the demand and the profit are there, somebody somewhere will produce the stuff. The basic force driving the business is not supply, but demand. Trying to blame Mexican cartels (we're already being told we have to "do COIN" in Mexico) or Afghan growers for a problem that starts within our own borders is utterly counterproductive: until the US gets serious about addressing demand, any "solution" will be stopgap at best.
Last edited by JMA; 04-08-2012 at 10:09 AM.
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