Tag: Military Advisers

Military Advisers?

Does Vietnam ring a bell?

As the war in Ukraine drags on and we hear this side or that is winning….a couple of representatives have horrible idea……they think we should send in military advisers to Ukraine.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers visited Kyiv on Saturday, and two members of the delegation told Fox News that they support the idea of the Pentagon sending military advisors to Ukraine, which would significantly escalate US involvement in the war.

After meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Rep. Michael Waltz (R-FL) said he supported sending military advisors into Ukraine to oversee weapons shipments and help with intelligence and logistics. “It could be contracted, it could be civilian, but it could be military as well,” he said.

“I don’t think anybody is advocating for any [American] military on the front line, but helping with logistics, planning those operations, integrating the intelligence is incredibly important right now,” Waltz added said.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) also expressed support for sending military advisors to track weapons shipments. “It would be good to have a logistics officer here to make sure that we understand and track the weaponry that we’re sending,” she said.

Last month, The New York Times reported that there is CIA personnel operating in Ukraine to direct intelligence sharing with Kyiv. The report said there are also commandos in the country from Britain, France, Canada, and Lithuania to help facilitate the transfer of Western arms, but there is currently no known US military presence in Ukraine.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, was also part of the delegation that visited Kyiv but wasn’t quoted saying he supported sending military advisors.

(antiwar.com)

Seriously?

Have any of these idiots every read a book?

Military advisers lead to the US escalation in Vietnam and we know where that lead (well some of us but not these morons)…..

Maybe a good idea would be to check out just who pays their ‘donations’……my money is on the M-IC.

Hopefully the rest of the Congress will see the folly of this idea….but I will not hold my breath.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

“To Advise And Support”

I know that most people only know about our many wars from what little information they get from their news media of choice…..in other words they get very little info in a 30 second report…..

Most Americans think they know what the US is doing in all these countries (about 140 countries)….they are not fighting but rather they are advising and supporting…..is that what you think the US is doing these days?

It is an excellent con job……how many of you know just what an “Adviser” actually does…..what are the parameters under they must function?

Military writing requires that the bottom line be stated up front.  Here is the bottom line: an advisor is a person lawfully tasked and employed to provide expert advice and counsel to Foreign Security Force officials, representatives, and influencers; through the establishment or continuance of interpersonal relationships founded on mutual trust and respect.” For some reading this, that definition may seem obvious; for others it may seem almost counterintuitive. Our considerably diverse comprehension of what an advisor actually is was my motivation for writing this article.

The mission to advise has existed for many years. In fact, some could argue that the United States owes its existence at least in part to an advisor named Friedrich von Steuben, a Prussian military expert employed by the fledgling Continental Army to train military maneuver.7 However, for this discussion I am focusing on the contemporary character of the mission in the era of the Wars on Terror (2001-present 2018).

I have already provided the bottom line, so now I need to explain how I got there. To do that, I will first reflect on a cold war era method of defining duty by exploring what it is that we expect our advisors Be, Know, and Do. I will then discuss briefly, the sources of my bottom line conclusion including a discussion on the impact of this topic. And then, I will conclude the paper by exploring what needs to be done in the interest of our sustained national security.

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/definition-advisor-comprehending-mission-advise-foreign-security-forces

Please read the missions that the “advisers” must labor under and the functions of the job scope……

Learn Stuff!

Turn The Page!

Those Old-Time Wars

…but I exp-ectI have been writing and analyzing conflict (war) for many years and in all that time I have valued the input from my readers on their thoughts and beliefs about the subject.  I am fortunate enough to have several readers and visitors that have strong opinions o the matter and they do not always agree with what I have said or written…..but I find it exhilarating to have opposition for it always helps the conversation move forward.

Recently a good friend from https://harbenpost.wordpress.com/,  to IST was commenting on a post I wrote about war…..https://lobotero.com/2018/09/05/its-afghanistan-as-usual/

His comment was about fighting wars the way we use to and winning them like we use to……my point is that the “big war” is no longer the way we fight……but after saying that are their still things called “Battle Lines”?

It is common in today’s wars to claim there are no battle lines, but this is only because we do not create or at the very least do not want to recognize them as such because the enemy creates them. The creation of battle lines is the intentional act of an army and is, in fact, one of its great powers. In recent years modern armies have seized territory pushing the enemy out and behind the borders of that territory. Only to then stop pursuing them and begin administering the territory they seized.

It follows then that while the army is thus occupied and unwilling to cross the existing territorial borders in pursuit of the enemy’s final destruction. It becomes an easy thing for that enemy to build a center of gravity, and from the safety of this position across the border (A battle line they created) continue the war in every facet with almost no serious risk to their operations. We’ve seen this time and time again especially in modern warfare. Just in the last century, we’ve seen it in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Columbia, and other places as well.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/07/30/do_battle_lines_still_exist_113661.html

In other words it depends on the way war is viewed.

Personally, I view war as a use of special operating teams with massive technological superiority….but that does not mean that the conflict can be won…..take Vietnam as an example then fast forward to Afghanistan and then Iraq……technological superiority did not lead to victory….but then we need to define victory…..for “victory is more difficult art than the war” (cannot remember who said that…..just know it was not me).  Keep in mind….”Victory counts for nothing  if those who gain it know not what to make of it”.  In the last 60 years the US is a prime example of that statement.

I believe that large scale operations are a growing thing of the past…..after the initial strike the conflict settles into a humdrum existence tit for tat confrontations.

Closing Thought–19Apr18

We have military serving in many countries around the world and now their numbers are a state “secret”…..

The Pentagon has removed all data related to troop numbers in their assorted wars from their primary data website, as of a newly released quarterly report. This means there is no longer publicly available official data on US troop  levels in Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan.

President Trump has made it a stated policy not to give up-to-date, accurate troop numbers on any of these wars. Despite this, the Defense Manpower Data Center has, through its most recent report, kept publishing figures. This data was admittedly often out of date or deliberately inaccurate, but it was an official baseline for the scope of the wars.

The Defense Manpower Data Center now has no manpower data at all. Pentagon officials say that the data is not on the new report because the policy is in the process of being updated. They did not, however, explain why they retroactively removed the troop figures from their previous two reports, from September and December.

(antiwar.com)

It seems that we the people do not have the right to information anymore….next I think Trump will try to get rid of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)……

Have a good evening to all my friends…..back atcha later…..chuq

Are The Generals Failing Our Troops?

I will not lie to my readers….I am an anti-war proponent and have been so since the 1970’s….I see our military personnel being pushed to their limits by the multiple deployments and the multiple wars been fought and to what aim?

In the past generals have gone to the president and told him what needed to be done and what wars we needed to fight….those days are gone with the promise of cushy jobs awaiting the generals upon retirement….

We need generals with a backbone that cares more about the troops than his retirement……

September 2006. Iraq was falling apart. Nearly 100 American troops were being killed a month. The war seemed hopeless, unwinnable (because it ultimately was). So the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Peter Pace, convened a “council of colonels’ – purportedly some of the brightest minds in the military – to recommend new policies. Only three, reportedly, had any combat experience in Iraq, but still, these guys were sharp. The group debated endlessly and eventually reached an impasse. They had three separate proposals and the group generally divided along service lines. Some Air Force and Navy guys wanted a phased withdrawal – the “Go Home” option – but their ideas were promptly dismissed. Other (mostly army and marine officers) wanted to “engage in prolonged conflict – the “Go Long” option. Finally, the most prominent army officers – including America’s current National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster – wanted to “Go Big” and heavily reinforce the troops in Iraq with a “surge.” You can guess which side won out.

George W. Bush liked the can-do optimism of the “surge” team and doubled down. Violence briefly dropped, a couple thousand more American troops died, and the military promptly declared victory. We’re still dealing with the fallout.

https://original.antiwar.com/Danny_Sjursen/2018/03/05/generals-failing-soldiers-america/

We need generals that will do what is needed to keep the country from fighting unnecessary wars ….wars of profit……

Yes we now have entered into a time of perpetual wars…….the costs of these wars have made the country less safe and a falling apart infrastructure……

I’m in my mid-thirties, which means that, after the 9/11 attacks, when this country went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq in what President George W. Bush called the “Global War on Terror,” I was still in college. I remember taking part in a couple of campus antiwar demonstrations and, while working as a waitress in 2003, being upset by customers who ordered “freedom fries,” not “French fries,” to protest France’s opposition to our war in Iraq. (As it happens, my mother is French, so it felt like a double insult.) For years, like many Americans, that was about all the thought I put into the war on terror. But one career choice led to another and today I’m co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

https://www.juancole.com/2018/02/hidden-americas-perpetual.html

Our generals should remember the old slogan from the 70’s…..”War  is good business….Invest your children”……

Where The Hell Are The Troops?

I have been writing about the deployment of our military for many years……we have troops basically fighting all over the world…..we have about 800 military bases in 70 countries…..but there is 44,000 troops deployed and no one knows where the Hell they are…..I know….say what?

When the Pentagon wants to mislead the public about where US troops are, generally speaking, they just lie. Yet sometimes the number of troops is just too big to claim as a rounding error, and questions start happening.

This week, the focus is on over 44,000 US military personnel deployed to “unknown,” which immediately raises red flags, because that’s not a place. Pentagon officials, however, say there is “no good way” to describe where they are.

Pentagon spokesman Col. Rob Manning, on the one hand, presented this as an “operational security” and “denying the enemy any advantage,” including, it seems providing any specifics on who “the enemy” at this point even is.

At the same time, Manning presented this as simply a limitation of the Pentagon’s current capabilities, and that there is literally “no personnel system” in the Pentagon that tracks where everyone is, and they just stick everyone else in “unknown” so the number of troops they officially have balances out with the number of troops deployed in actual, real places.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon went a step further, saying that the figures are flat out fiction, and were “not meant to represent an accurate accounting of troops currently deployed to any location. They should not be relied upon for a current picture of what is going on.”

Secretary of Defense James Mattis suggested that the situation was complicated, but also that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the lack of accounting for troops abroad, saying at some point he was going to try to put everything together and figure out where everyone really is.

(antiwar.com)

Now we will wait to see if someone in the bowels of the Pentagon knows where these troops are…..maybe Fearless Fosdick has an idea…..I mean that moron has knowledge that no one else has……

US Troops Update

Since what the troops are doing around the world is of no importance to the media I guess it falls on me to keep the world abreast of all the adventurism….

First Iraq and the battle for Mosul……

Iraqi officials had previously predicted they’d have western Mosul fully “liberated” by the end of March. With just a few days left, the offensive remains largely stalled however, with the offensive moving at a snail’s pace. Hoping to speed things up, the US has announced another escalation, sending more combat troops into the city.

The size of this escalation is as yet unknown, with the Pentagon only announcing that the deployment was being ordered, putting more combat troops into the city for “advise and assist” operations. These appear to be some of the troops previously tapped to go to Kuwait.

The only clue officials would give to the size of the new deployment is that it would not “reunite the entire brigade,” which means that the new deployment is at least less than 2,500. The troops are being considered “temporary,” like many of the troops in Iraq, which means they aren’t part of the official count.

(antiwar.com)

The battle raging for control of the capital of ISIS, Raqqa, continues and US troops are ass deep in this fight……this would be in Syria……

With Kurdish YPG forces taking part in the battle, US troops recently airlifted into the area west of the ISIS capital city of Raqqa captured a Syrian military airport near the city of Tabqa, a site which had been held by ISIS forces for some time.

The airport’s capture is being presented as part of the ongoing effort by the US and YPG to surround Raqqa before invading the city. Kurdish forces surround the city’s north, and now have some presence in the northeast and northwest, though the city still appears far from totally surrounded.

(antiwar.com)

For a couple of years a war has been fought on the Arabian Peninsula, the Saudis are killing Yemenis but the US was not directly involved just mostly behind the scenes….but that could change real soon…..

Defense Secretary James Mattis is said to be pushing for the White House to remove all restrictions, placed during the waning months of President Obama’s presidency, on US military support for the Saudi invasion of Yemen, seeking deeper direct US involvement in fighting the Yemeni Shi’ites.

Mattis is said to be pushing National Security Adviser HR McMaster to agree that US support would combat the “common threat” the US and Saudi Arabia face in Yemen, which appears to be continued Shi’ite autonomy in the northern half of the country.

(antiwar.com)

Do not forget our longest war ever…that would be Afghanistan and yes there is more troops needed in that country also…..

Gen. Nicholson now says he wants another 5,000 US and NATO troops, saying he believes the US needs that many to “break the stalemate” in the war. Nicholson has repeatedly labeled the conflict a “stalemate” in recent weeks, which appears to be an overestimation of the situation, with the Taliban continuing to gain ground against Afghan security forces.

Nicholson argued that because 9/11 involved Afghanistan, a loss in the country would embolden terrorists globally. At the same time, throwing an addition 5,000 “US and NATO troops,” which would likely end up being almost exclusively US troops, at the war 16 years later doesn’t seem like it’s going to resolve the conflict, but rather just extend it once again.

(antiwar.com)

At what point does all this escalation of war become enough?

The media glosses over much of this and the American people do NOT care one whit about these wars or the problems they cause…..

All in all….money well spent. (Sarcasm)

Don’t be foolish…Pay Attention!

See What Blood Money Can Buy?

Yesterday I wrote a post about the defunct mercenary operation, Blackwater, and how it is functioning as an air force in Libya…..read below…

Source: From The Ashes – In Saner Thought

After posting that article I found another one about Blackwater and its founder and CEO, Prince, it appears that he is working as an adviser to the Trump team from the shadows……

Erik Prince, America’s most notorious mercenary, is lurking in the shadows of the incoming Trump administration. A former senior U.S. official who has advised the Trump transition told The Intercept that Prince has been advising the team on matters related to intelligence and defense, including weighing in on candidates for the defense and state departments. The official asked not to be identified because of a transition policy prohibiting discussion of confidential deliberations.

On election night, Prince’s latest wife, Stacy DeLuke, posted pictures from inside Trump’s campaign headquarters as Donald Trump and Mike Pence watched the returns come in, including a close shot of Pence and Trump with their families. “We know some people who worked closely with [Trump] on his campaign,” DeLuke wrote. “Waiting for the numbers to come in last night. It was well worth the wait!!!! #PresidentTrump2016.” Prince’s sister, billionaire Betsy DeVos, is Trump’s nominee for education secretary and Prince (and his mother) gave large sums of money to a Trump Super PAC.

Source: Notorious Mercenary Erik Prince Is Advising Trump From the Shadows

What does this mean to the future of war for the US?  An adviser whose sole reason for life is……..WAR!

Were We Truly Prepared?

Do you remember those words?

They are words that most of us try to live by…..especially if you live where I live…..in the path of a hurricane.  If you do then you are well aware of what “be prepared” means.

But for this post I am not going to go on about a hurricane….nope this time I want to talk about our longest war…..Afghanistan and the Taleban.  Now with the mission extended indefinitely….are we more prepared now?

Were we as a nation ready to fight the Taleban?  Were we prepared?  I mean they, Taleban, are having some amazing successes….why is that?

I know that we, at least to some, have an unbeatable military….but the problem is we were fighting with the tactics of our last war…..Gulf War in 1991.

For instance in the 1960’s when the CIA and the Bolivian government were hunting down Che they made it mandatory that his book on guerilla warfare was “must” reading and they used his tactics against him….he was captured and murdered.

Vietnam is an example where they were employing the wrong strategy….the Viet Cong and the NVA were masters at guerilla warfare….it was a winner against the French….but for some reason we did not take their tactics seriously and look where that lead the country.

If our “leaders” had spent a little time reading the book by Giap, “People’s Army People’s War” then were would have been more successful….for in his book he outlines the best strategies to use against a larger more powerful enemy….

This brings me to our 2001 invasion of Afghanistan……it is true that we routed the Taleban in a very short time….but it was NOT defeated and has been a hit and run pain in the ass for 15 years.

I know hindsight is 20/20 but it also can be very telling of inadequacies….

Are you scratching your head yet?

In 1995 a book was published entitled “the Other Side Of The Mountain” about the Afghan guerilla warfare….it is choked full of tactics used by the Mujahideen fighters against the Russians in the 1980’s…..

The book is full of detailed tactics that were used….the same tactics that are being used today by the Taleban against the forces that are occupying the country.

I believe that we would be having greater success against the Taleban if this had been required reading of those that were leading the fight in Afghanistan….

Remember:  Reading is Fundamental!

Africa, The Dark Continent

I remember in my youth I heard Africa referred to as “The Dark Continent”…..I was never sure if that was a racist statement or just a statement on the limited amount of knowledge of the continent….I’m still not sure what is meant by the description.

Just what is US troops doing in Africa?  Are we fighting terror?  Maybe we are just a stabilizing force for some dictator?  What is the mission?

The Intercept has gained access to some papers that may help to explain our involvement in Africa…….

Across Africa, 1,700 Navy SEALs, Army Green Berets, and other military personnel are carrying out 78 distinct “mission sets” in more than 20 nations, according to documents obtained by The Intercept.

“The SOCAFRICA operational environment is volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous,” says Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, using the acronym of the secretive organization he presides over, Special Operations Command Africa. “It’s a wickedly complex environment tailor-made for the type of nuanced and professional cooperation SOF [special operations forces] is able to provide.”

Equally complex is figuring out just what America’s most elite troops on the continent are actually doing, and who they are targeting.

Source: In Africa, the U.S. Military Sees Enemies Everywhere

Again….what is the specific mission of troops deployed to Africa?

There is a line in a movie about Africa….”It is Africa….No body cares about Africa”…..that was accurate until oil was discovered in Nigeria and the world salivated and became concerned….the vision of dollar signs danced in their eyes…..