Hamkari Baraye Kandahar aka Deepwater Horizon

Another Opinion in Afghanistan:

Actually, I wrote this two months ago and I came to the same conclusion that you did. However, as I redeployed back from Afghanistan I had a very interesting conversation with another person who seemed to me deliriously motivated while I saw the people who just wanted to go to the PX and chow halls instead of doing anything about it. The bottom line of our conversation was that neither of us had the authority to change the things out of our control - i.e. everything youve outlined, but we have to try to do something because if everybody adopted my defeatist attitude at the time, it is conceivable that units would just adopt a force protection posture and not do anything.

So I changed this piece to add a few things that might help in my opinion. It is evident that there have been failures at every level of war - I just have to go with my gut feeling that there are some people at each level trying to do the right thing.

On my flight back from Afghanistan, I spoke to a lot of Staff Sergeants and below and basically they all knew the deal and there was no way for anyone to spin it for them. They have been handcuffed and have seen their buddies die because of that. Vehicles have blown past their Snap TCPs because they cannot fire warning shots or be subjected to UCMJ. They dont understand the mission. They are basically surviving. At the time I couldnt think of any response - but it is the US Armys job to provide the response to them.

While it is a stretch that my conclusion is that "we can win it" I think it is the right thing to do and the right thing to think because if we do not have that attitude, no matter how farfetched it seems, some units will adopt a force protection posture instead of being mission-oriented - which will harm the Army in the years to come, beyond casualties, striking at its core.

Jpan- You label me as a whiner and a complainer. That is fine. I am here doing my job to the best of my ability, so I am doing "something about it" beyond whining and complaining. The problem with the cheerleaders is that when someone stands up and says that the strategic or operational clock is broke, they're labeled whiners and complainers, while your op-ed here comes to the valiant conclusion that, of course, we can fix it. I didn't realize that you were just writing for company grade officers. I apologize. If that is the case, then why aren't you talking about TTPs on Company Command?

Regarding shining a turd, the point is that whether you "get back to basics" with strategic communications by trying to show actions, or if you do a bunch of IO, either way, they know we're leaving before the Taliban and they know all the areas that the TB control. That is a turd that rushed, short-term actions cannot shine, no matter how good they are.

So, my solution. I wouldn't say that I have a solution. I have ideas and opinions and no idea or opinion regarding a valid way forward could be condensed to this forum. But, if I were a national decision-maker, I'd recognize that the people I have working for me are delusional and will tell me that they can make anything happen, even if they can't. Then, I'd find someone with a solid understanding of strategic and operational reality who isn't wedded to counterinsurgency doctrine (i.e. believes in it in the right forum, but doesn't see it as a cure-all theory to be proven here). And I'd ask him what the investment would truly be to leave Afghanistan as a clear "win" with a stable government in place. (How you get a stable government with Karzai in control would have to be explained to me as well. Reminds me of J.P. Vann's and Victor Krulak's later arguments about Vietnam.) I would then consider the potential strategic gains of such an investment, balanced against the strategic costs. I would also consider the strategic opportunity costs for all the other issues we are neglecting due to this involvement. I would then ask for guidance on a different way forward, one that allows us to interdict the terrorist threat that we came here for in the first place, without having to try to make a state out of a feudal wasteland. I would then weigh the risks, benefits, and costs of the two ways ahead (not in some media circus that comes up with a report that says nothing, but in a series of small, focused, and off the record discussions). And I would choose one way, not the middle way. If I was going to try to "win" in Astan, I would give my hand-chosen, strategically and operationally savvy leader the resources he believed he needed. And if that didn't make sense (which honestly I don't think it would), I would equally attack the minimalist plan with vigor. Right now, we have a middle way, fueled by people who have failed to give valid counsel, staffed by people who won't honestly assess their progress due to career considerations, killing soldiers who have zero say in any of it, for very little possible gain.

Of course, this is all fantasy. A way has been chosen and it is failing by all accounts. Leaders have a responsibility to stand up and call a spade a spade, and propose a new way forward. We are wasting lives and money here for dubious strategic gain.

Another Opinion in Afghanistan:

Re your first point: "you can't shine a turd"

That's is what my op-ed was about - we need to stop focusing on shining the turd and dealing with it

Re your second point: "surge timeline is broken and most people do not care"

Both are true but has nothing to do with my op-ed. Company grade officers cannot do anything about national level policies such as timelines.

Re your third point: "that this mess is a foregone conclusion"

Perhaps it is - but once again, I'd rather do something about it then complain about it

Re the fourth section which is basically a rant - I already spoke out against the Kandahar Offensive in April here:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2010/04/

And believe me, I've taken flak for that as well as other attempts at "speaking out"

But at least I'm putting my name on the line and doing something about it - not whine and hide in anonymity

What is your solution, if any?

Oleg, the military does not have a choice about the mission in Afghanistan, but military leaders could and should have given honest council to the political leadership. They are steeped in a "can-do" culture and, as careerists socialized to tell people what they want to hear, are almost physically incapable of speaking truth to power. So, we get the muddle through, "we can do it no matter what resources we are given" sort of mess that you find today. The military doesn't need "less eager men," but it needs pragmatic and truthful people who will tell their superiors when a job is impossible. It needs young leaders to stand up and say, "I refuse to pass rosy analysis up the chain just because you tell me that my viewpoint isn't happy enough." It needs more people who write about the need for an actual strategy (there is no strategy guiding our operations, its all tactics and operational level though at best), rather than writing about how the media, "strategic communications", and the back-stabbers in Washington are losing the war. We are losing the war while able bodied soldiers sit around licking ice cream on main bases, mid-level careerists tell generals whatever they want to hear, and generals mouth platitudes about end states that they know can't happen on the current timeline. This is all because generals were too cowardly to say, "Mr. President, this can't be done on timeline x with y amount of resources. On that timeline and resources, I can accomplish z at best." The old TACTICS, not strategies, did not work. And they wasted 9 years and soured the Afghan people on us and made them not trust our promises. The new tactics are at best a slightly dolled up version of the old tactics, the people now do not trust us, and they know that we're going to leave before the Taliban do. So, yes, I think all is lost. Strategically, this campaign is a waste and a lie, because even if we created a flowering bed of stability here, AQ and all the other threats will find some other failed state to attack us from. Like Mexico. Or Venezuela. Or Paraguay. Read today's WaPo.

The military and non-military cheerleaders are applauding a status quo that is weakening us as a nation. I'm not saying that we should pull out with our tail between our legs and go home never to depart again. I am saying that we need to recognize a losing situation and either get serious about winning (the broad "we" is not serious about anything here from what I can see, although narrower groups of "we" are busting their asses and getting mangled left and right to make progress) or get serious about finding a STRATEGIC solution we can live with.

Oleg- Note: Another Opinion IN Afghanistan... not ON Afghanistan. Where are you cheerleading from? And its not my first time in the arena. In any case, that is a weak comeback. Attack the message or give it up.

Oleg, Another Opinion in Afghanistan may be hard to read, but he's right.

And IMHO, TR is a poorly choice to quote. The US has spoken loudly--not softly--and carried a rather small stick for the last 9 years. The failed tactics of half-measures and platitudes and 365-day rotations has brought nothing even close to victory.

Captain, you're delusional. First, all of your reading of Army propaganda on the buzzword "strategic communications" (JFQ, Mil Review) needs to be leavened by common sense: you can't shine a turd. Second, a military that takes this long to get its "surge" forces in place when a timeline has been created is broken and decadent. Most of the people getting here now are more interested in finding the PX and the dessert line than winning a war anyway. Third, no matter how hard they try, you have outlined why this mess is almost a foregone conclusion anyway. After 9 years of half-hearted nonsense, the Afghan people have given up on us. They've seen too many promises followed by slit throats of "collaborators" when we pull out. Even when the "surge" is fully in place we still don't have enough manpower to cover all the places where the mercury squirts at night. And the Taliban is out governing our allies in most areas. You can point the finger at politicians, the media, contractors, whoever you want, but our military leadership has accepted an impossible task based on a complete lack of any strategic thought and has shown little sense of urgency in actually trying to get all the cats and dogs here to focus on what matters. People complain about the artificial timeline, but no one is interested in another 9 years of war here after we have pissed the first nine away. The timeline isn't artificial. It is built on the American people's impatience with their military leaders' abject failure to conduct the Afghan campaign in a strategically sound manner. The counsel given to the national decision-makers is based on tactical or operational (at best) level thought, leavened with a few simplistically elegant theories by arrogant men who think they make anything happen with willpower, informed by a hierarchy of liars and a**-kissers who pass only good news up the chain of command. History will judge them harshly. You should open your eyes and think for yourself. The military needs less of the "put me in coach, of course I can do it" mentality and more pragmatism and honesty if we are going to negotiate future challenges without catastrophe. The military leadership would have done well to have greatly circumscribed our mission here when they realized their time and resources would be limited. They didn't. They wasted lives. And that is a criminal lack of foresight.