Tag: The Surge

To (Wiki)Leak Or Not

By now the whole damn world has had time to hear about all those Iraqi war documents that have been leaked to the public….the newest batch came out a week or so ago….some 400,000 pieces of information…..I purposefully waited until after the mid-term elections….why?  It would be a mention in the media because the election would be the big story….because it gives the pundits a reason to live…..

I spent a week or so checking out the conserv commentators on the tube to see where it was falling on the subject……almost to a man/woman the reporting they did was about how the leaks would destroy our national security and the one who leaked should be tried for treason or some such trumped up charge…..not one mention that these documents are full of out right LIES told to the American people….not one word about the hero of the Surge, Patreus and that his big plan was not that effective as the WH would have us believe….and I mean both Bush and Obama White Houses……

I focus on the Surge that all Repubs have thumped their chest like sex starved primates and tried to deify a general for being a genius that apparently he was NOT…..

A analysis of the newest Wikileak documents from the Consortiumnews.com:

For instance, the records suggest that the sectarian slaughter of 2006 was burning itself out largely because brutal ethnic cleansing had separated the Shiites and the Sunnis. The indiscriminate violence also had turned many Iraqis against both the excesses of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the sectarian militias.

Also, in 2006, key insurgent leaders, such as al-Qaeda’s Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, were killed and Sunni tribesmen in restive Anbar Province were signing up to accept American money in exchange for switching sides – all of these key developments preceding the “surge.”

Though the additional 30,000 U.S. troops in 2007 may have helped accelerate or consolidate these gains, the eventual drop in violence after the “surge” appears more coincidental than causal – and thus may not justify the acclaim given to President Bush and Gen. David Petraeus or the claims by neoconservative war strategists that they were vindicated.

A New York Times analysis of the WikiLeaks documents lends support to the more skeptical view of the “surge,” noting that the growing revulsion among Iraqis over the violence and a renewed hope for peace go a long way toward explaining why the killing slowed.

I do so enjoy being proved correct…..for not many in the mainstream media was critical of the Surge from the beginning….but on the other hand there were several bloggers, including myself, that saw it for what it was……a game of military chess……to take credit for a good thing even if it was not your doing……

The Surge was NOT the huge success that the politicos and the media made it out to be…..the tribes were already on the payroll of the US and the surge was more to protect Baghdad than it was to secure Anbar province….but it looks good on a general’s resume to say that he secured the province and it was handed over to the Iraqis for further protection……I said this in 2007 and again 2008……of course, then I was a doom and gloom writer with NO foot into reality….and now with the ‘official’ military documents saying basically the same thing as I……I have but one thing to say to my conserv detractors……BITE ME!

A Working Government For Afghanistan?

My readers know that I have serious reservations about the US situation in Afghanistan.

By now most Americans have heard and formed an opinion on the up-coming surge of American troops for Afghanistan.  My take on it is that we will send our troops to the country to help sure up the government, both national and local, to the point that they can step forward and take over the defense against outside influences.

Griff White of the WaPo has an interesting article in the issue of 08 Dec:  he has written that there are two separate government s for some of the provinces in Afghanistan……

The first was appointed by President Hamid Karzai and is backed by thousands of U.S. troops. He governs this mountainous eastern Afghan province by day, cutting the ribbons on new development projects and, according to fellow officials with knowledge of his dealings, taking a generous personal cut of the province’s foreign assistance budget.

The second governor was chosen by Taliban leader Mohammad Omar and, hunted by American soldiers, sneaks in only at night. He issues edicts on “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” stationery, plots attacks against government forces and fires any lower-ranking Taliban official tainted by even the whiff of corruption.

Shadow government officials collect taxes, forcing farmers at gunpoint to turn over 10 percent of their crops, according to accounts of officials and residents. Taliban district chiefs conscript young men into the radical Islamist movement’s army of insurgents, threatening death for those unwilling to serve. And the Taliban’s judges issue rulings marked by a ruthless efficiency: With no jails in which to hold prisoners, execution by hanging or automatic rifle is the swiftly delivered punishment for convicted murderers and rapists, or for anyone found guilty of working with the government.

Could we put enough troops in Afghanistan to fight such a development?  I say probably not…..if you look at Afghanistan today….the shadow government is far more successful than the “elected” government….how many troops will it take to change that development?  I do not believe we have enough troops in service to America to make this a win win situation.

Afghanistan’s New Plan

Well, it worked in Iraq…..but will be meet with the same success in Afghanistan?

The United States backs a proposed Afghan government plan to engage tribal elders in the war against the resurgent Taliban, a move seen by critics as reviving militias, its top envoy said on Tuesday.

Although, seven years on from the Taliban’s ouster, there are nearly 70,000 NATO-led troops in Afghanistan — to be boosted by up to 30,000 extra U.S. soldiers by the summer — alongside tens of thousands of Afghan forces, William Wood said this was not enough to protect all Afghan villages from the militants.

Called the “Community Guard Programme,” the pilot project will cover southern and eastern areas where the al Qaeda-backed Taliban are most active, said Wood.

“The … programme … is meant to strengthen local communities and local tribes in their ability to protect what they consider to be their traditional homes,” Wood told a news conference at the U.S. embassy in Kabul.

In Iraq, the recruitment of Sunni Arab tribesmen to help fight al Qaeda is widely seen as one of the factors behind a decline in the level of violence.

Community Shuras, or councils, will choose volunteers for defending their villages against the Taliban under the plan, proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Wood said.

Wood said successive governments in Afghanistan had relied for centuries on tribal chiefs and community leaders for protecting their villages.

He refused to say who would provide arms to the groups, but emphasized that the United States was not doing so.

Many ordinary Afghans and some politicians have spoken against the plan, which comes amid an escalation in violence this year in Afghanistan, the bloodiest period since Taliban’s ouster.

What stopped this plan from happening 7 years ago?

What Is Next For Afghanistan?

Sending more U.S. forces to Afghanistan is an idea whose time has come. The question is whether the time when it could work has already gone.

President-elect Barack Obama, departing President George W. Bush and holdover Defense Secretary Robert Gates have backed a plan to send 20,000 or more troops next year. Those forces must confront an increasingly entrenched Taliban enemy and a population grown hostile to foreign troops after seven years of U.S.-led warfare.

“We may have missed the golden moment there,” said Lawrence Korb, a former Pentagon official who has long advocated an increased U.S. focus on Afghanistan.

The tension between the short-run need for more muscle to thwart the Taliban and the long-term trap of becoming the latest in a long line of foreign intruders bogged down in Afghanistan forms the core of the dilemma confronting Obama.

The new U.S. troops will likely be used to strike hard at Taliban insurgents and attempt to halt their momentum, said retired Army General Jack Keane, who helped plan a similar U.S. buildup in Iraq two years ago.

There is a real possibility that the US could get bogged down in the country just as bad as the USSR had 15 years ago.  The US is doing the same things the Sovietsa did–throw more troops and equiupment into the country–did not work for them and will not work of us.

Obama’s War

This is an article written by Patrick J. Buchanan.  In the past I have had little to agree on, but I find myself ever closer in my views with Mr. Buchanan.  This article illustrates how he sees the Obama war in Afghanistan and I agree on some points.  It is well written and makes some very good points.

Just two months after the twin towers fell, the armies of the Northern Alliance marched into Kabul. The Taliban fled.

The triumph was total in the “splendid little war” that had cost one U.S. casualty. Or so it seemed. Yet, last month, the war against the Taliban entered its eighth year, the second longest war in our history, and America and NATO have never been nearer to strategic defeat.

So critical is the situation that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, in Kandahar last week, promised rapid deployment, before any Taliban spring offensive, of two and perhaps three combat brigades of the 20,000 troops requested by Gen. David McKiernan. The first 4,000, from the 10th Mountain, are expected in January.

With 34,000 U.S. soldiers already in country, half under NATO command, the 20,000 will increase U.S. forces there to 54,000, a 60 percent ratcheting up. Shades of LBJ, 1964-65. Afghanistan is going to be Obama’s War. And upon its outcome will hang the fate of his presidency. Has he thought this through?

How do we win this war, if by winning we mean establishing a pro-Western democratic government in control of the country that has the support of the people and loyalty of an Afghan army strong enough to defend the nation from a resurgent Taliban?

We are further from that goal going into 2009 than we were five years ago.

What are the long-term prospects for any such success?

Each year, the supply of opium out of Afghanistan, from which most of the world’s heroin comes, sets a new record. Payoffs by narcotics traffickers are corrupting the government. The fanatically devout Taliban had eradicated the drug trade, but is now abetting the drug lords in return for money for weapons to kill the Americans.

Militarily, the Taliban forces are stronger than they have been since 2001, moving out of the south and east and infesting half the country. They have sanctuaries in Pakistan and virtually ring Kabul.

U.S. air strikes have killed so many Afghan civilians that President Karzai, who controls little more than Kabul, has begun to condemn the U.S. attacks. Predator attacks on Taliban and al-Qaida in Pakistan have inflamed the population there.

And can pinprick air strikes win a war of this magnitude?

The supply line for our troops in Afghanistan, which runs from Karachi up to Peshawar through the Khyber Pass to Kabul, is now a perilous passage. Four times this month, U.S. transport depots in Pakistan have been attacked, with hundreds of vehicles destroyed.

Before arriving in Kandahar, Gates spoke grimly of a “sustained commitment for some protracted period of time. How many years that is, and how many troops that is … nobody knows.”

Gen. McKiernan says it will be at least three or four years before the Afghan army and police can handle the Taliban.

But why does it take a dozen years to get an Afghan army up to where it can defend the people and regime against a Taliban return? Why do our Afghans seem less disposed to fight and die for democracy than the Taliban are to fight and die for theocracy? Does their God, Allah, command a deeper love and loyalty than our god, democracy?

McKiernan says the situation may get worse before it gets better. Gates compares Afghanistan to the Cold War. “(W)e are in many respects in an ideological conflict with violent extremists. … The last ideological conflict we were in lasted about 45 years.”

That would truly be, in Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase, “a long, hard slog.”

America, without debate, is about to invest blood and treasure, indefinitely, in a war to which no end seems remotely in sight, if the commanding general is talking about four years at least and the now-and-future war minister is talking about four decades.

What is there to win in Afghanistan to justify doubling down our investment? If our vital interest is to deny a sanctuary there to al-Qaida, do we have to build a new Afghanistan to accomplish that? Did not al-Qaeda depart years ago for a new sanctuary in Pakistan?

What hope is there of creating in this tribal land a democracy committed to freedom, equality and human rights that Afghans have never known? What is the expectation that 54,000 or 75,000 U.S. troops can crush an insurgency that enjoys a privileged sanctuary to which it can return, to rest, recuperate and recruit for next year’s offensive?

Of all the lands of the earth, Afghanistan has been among the least hospitable to foreigners who come to rule, or to teach them how they should rule themselves.

Would Dwight D. Eisenhower – who settled for the status quo ante in Korea, an armistice at the line of scrimmage – commit his country to such an open-ended war? Would Richard Nixon? Would Ronald Reagan?

Hard to believe. George W. Bush would. But did not America vote against Bush? Why is America getting seamless continuity when it voted for significant change?

A “Surge” For Afghanistan?

Since all went so very well in Iraq, the surge strategy is being considered for Afghanistan.  May I suggest to rethink this or the US could quite possibly be the same victim as the USSR back in the day.

American officials have backed the view of General Sir David Richards, the new head of the British Army, that a “surge” is needed in Afghanistan to beat the Taliban.

Patrick Moon, the United States’ deputy assistant secretary of state for South Asia, said that the extra troops were essential to carry out a security drive in the country.

General Richards would replace General Sir Richard Dannatt as the head of the Army – he will take over next summer – and disclosed that the new commander believed 30,000 more troops would be needed to fight the Taliban. He is seeking 5,000 extra British troops. Mr Moon said that security needed to be established before the Afghan elections next year, and also to break the “nexus” of drug barons and the Taliban who are cultivating opium to fund the insurgency. “The numbers in the Afghan army will be raised from 65,000 to 134,000 over a five-year period,” he added.

A rethink may be necessary.

Iraq Is Smoldering

A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

The findings seem to cast doubts on McCain’s frequent assertions that the United States is “on a path to victory” in Iraq by underscoring the deep uncertainties of the situation despite the 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was the leading congressional advocate.

But McCain could also use the findings to try to strengthen his argument for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until conditions stabilize.

For Obama, the report raises questions about whether he could fulfill his pledge to withdraw most of the remaining 152,000 U.S. troops _ he would leave some there to deal with al Qaida and to protect U.S. diplomats and civilians _ within 16 months of taking office so that more U.S. forces could be sent to battle the growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

The new NIE, which reflects the consensus of all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, has significant implications for Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, whose differences over the Iraq war are a major issue in the presidential campaign.

Troops Will NOT Come Home

Both major party presidential candidates have lauded the surge strategy as a great success despite mounting evidence that sectarian cleansing, not the surge, was responsible for the drop in violence. Republican nominee John McCain has remained hawkish on the war from the start, though Democratic nominee Barrack Obama has several times stated his intent to withdraw forces from Iraq if elected.

However, Senator Obama’s comment earlier this month that “the surge succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,” and increasing insistence that he will seek guidance from military leaders on the pullout have left the differences between the two candidates less clear. And with Afghanistan taking up an increasing amount of the campaigns’ focus it seems unlikely that further clarification is immediately forthcoming.

Secretary Gates also predicted increases in the number of troops in Afghanistan next year. He says that failure in either nation “would be a disastrous blow to our credibility.” But with Gen. Petraeus doubting victory in Iraq and Admiral Mullen warning that the strategy in Afghanistan isn’t succeeding either, staving off failure in either, let alone both, an enormous challenge.

Are You Sure Of The Surge?

While the fighting in Iraq continues to kill scores of civilians every week, the relative decline in violence over last year’s levels has been the cause of much optimism among war weary Americans and touted by President Bush as a vindication of his “surge” strategy.

But though both major Presidential candidates having declared the surge a great success and polls show an ever increasing number of Americans believing the same, many have continued to insist that the surge has little if anything to do with the decline in violence. A new report released today has strengthened that position.

The report, published in the Environment and Planning A journal, uses satellite data to show the enormous number of minority Sunnis cleansed from neighborhoods by Shi’ite militias. By the time the surge began, according to study leader Dr. John Agnew of UCLA, “many of the targets of the conflict had either been killed or fled the country”.

In fact, humanitarian groups were reporting a year ago that the number of Iraqis fleeing their homes actually soared after the surge began. The displacement of millions of Iraqi both internally and as refugees into neighboring countries, then, was the primary cause of the decline in violence. The surge, according to the report, “had no observable effect, except insofar as it has helped to provide a seal of approval for a process of ethno-sectarian neighborhood homogenization that is now largely achieved”.

The study’s conclusion, though novel considering the present narrative, is hardly without precedent. In fact, the administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate in August of 2007 had concluded that conflict levels in some neighborhoods were diminishing because of sectarian displacements.

It also sheds additional light on the administration’s persistent warnings that the gains are “fragile and reversible“. With handfuls of the millions of refugees just now beginning to trickle back home, they may find their “cleansed” neighborhoods no more friendly an environment than when they left.

A Review Of The Afghan Strategy

The Pentagon is taking a close look at its war strategy in Afghanistan in the face of rising violence from an increasingly complex insurgency, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.

In Washington, a senior U.S. official told Reuters the State Department was conducting its own formal review expected to last several weeks, indicating a broader rethink by the Bush administration of its strategy in Afghanistan.

Gates declined to say if a formal or informal review had been launched by the Pentagon but noted the United States had previously examined its strategy in Iraq — a review that resulted in major changes, including a boost in troop numbers.

“We are taking a close look at it and I don’t know whether the results of that will be a significant change in strategy or just some adjustments,” Gates told reporters in London.

“We did that in Iraq and we made a change in strategy in Iraq, and we are going to continue to look at the situation in Afghanistan,” said Gates, who visited Afghanistan this week before flying to London for a meeting with NATO counterparts.

Upon reading this piece I was wondering how they would work the “surge” into the conversation–BAM!  There it is!