In Ganjgal, Afghanistan September 7, 2009, four U.S. Marines were killed. The Marines were assisting Afghan forces in searching for weapons and then meeting village elders to plan police patrols. They were ambushed by rebel forces during the operation.

While it was the bullets of the “insurgents” that ended their lives, it was political correctness that killed them. U.S. commanders, citing new rules to avoid civilian casualties, rejected repeated calls by the Marines to unleash fire at insurgents despite being told repeatedly that they were not near the village or civilians. These new rules are politically correct and were issued to avoid civilian casualties which risk alienating the Afghan population and jeopardizing the war effort. But General Stanley A. McChrystal and other top military officials have insisted air support and fire power would not be restricted when U.S. troops were under direct threat. Unfortunately, those warriors died because they were sent into a known hostile area and promised air support that never came.

Those brave Marines would be alive today if not for President Barack Obama’s support of these politically-correct military rules. These rules prevented the Marines from receiving the military back-up they needed for survival. Their pleas, “We are pinned down. We are running low on ammo…,” were ignored.

Gen. McChrystal has requested 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan. Again our soldiers are contending with half-measures and lack of support. After months of receiving Gen. McChrystal’s recommendation, Mr. Obama has yet to make a decision and is wary of upsetting his far-left, anti-war proponents. Mr. Obama has signaled that he might send half the number of troops that were requested. Such a decision would be folly. Mr. Obama is not better equipped to make such a decision than Gen. McChrystal. The president has never so much as worn a pair of combat boots while the distinguished general has served in the military since he was 18-years-old. If Mr. Obama does indeed decide to send in only 20,000 troops, our enemy will be emboldened and our troops demoralized. The result will be more unnecessary deaths of our men in arms.

War is made by a state with laws. It is an act of imposing that will upon others who in turn resist. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are fiercely resisting that imposition of will which can only be stopped with sudden violence. So long as we are willing to impose our will upon those forces of terror, we will be at war. When at war, it is imperative to allow the military to do their job and destroy the enemy as quickly as possible. No war has ever been won by using less force than its opposition.

Half-measures cannot win wars. Half-measures were seen in Vietnam, which resulted not in a “bloodless war” but fully bloodied troops. President Lyndon Johnson’s micro-managed plan was to risk the lives of troops by using a “slow squeeze” play as recommended by his civilian advisors. This was in direct conflict with the senior military advisors’ “fast attack.” President Jimmy Carter used half-measures in the Iran Hostage Crisis that lasted 444 days, with a failed micro-managed rescue disaster in the sand, Operation Eagle Claw.  President Bill Clinton thought he could fight war with missiles, letting them destroy “baby-milk factories” in Iraq and hospitals in Serbia. Mr. Clinton denied Gen. Thomas Montgomery’s request for reinforcements, air support and armored vehicles in Mogadishu, where 18 American soldiers were killed and 77 wounded. Half-measures do not work.

Now, Mr. Obama thinks he can micro-manage the war in Afghanistan while also preventing the left-wing base from revolting. But according to Gen. George S. Patton Jr., “There is only one tactical principle which is not subject to change. It is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wound, death and destruction on the enemy in the minimum amount of time.” This is a formula for success.

President George W. Bush’s War on Terror was one of the most successful wars in the long history of war: more land was taken in less time, with the lowest loss of life. This result was due to Mr. Bush allowing the troops to destroy the enemy swiftly. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 was over in a few months; it is the occupation that has lasted for years, which is to be expected. The occupation of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, likewise, took years.

Mr. Obama is more interested in protecting his image than saving the lives of our brave men and women who face death. The best way to get the troops out of Afghanistan is to trust Gen. McChrystal and comply with his recommendation. Those men are risking their lives, the least Mr. Obama can do is risk is his reputation.

Other Democratic leaders such as President Harry Truman and President Franklin D. Roosevelt understood how to conduct a war. They were willing to wage even total war when necessary, such as the bombing of Dresden and Hiroshima. Full measures brought about full surrender. But, that was when Democrats were still fully committed to the founding principles of America. The modern Democratic Party is no longer loyal to America or its values. It is loyal only to political ambition and will sacrifice troops at its altar.

If al Qaeda and the Taliban are worth killing, then the United States must fight. If they are not, then our troops should return home and Afghanistan should suffer its fate under the Taliban. When the president knowingly sends troops into known hostile areas without the necessary support and they die, their blood is on his hands. Our American soldiers should not be sacrificed to satiate the wolf of appeasement.

-Michael Fowler is the director of Veterans for Academic Freedom, a former Force Recon Marine, instructor of Christian apologetics, author and talk-radio host.

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The solution to winning the war in Afghanistan is to destroy the Taliban’s ability to make war, causing the decimation of the Taliban war machine. The Taliban’s supply lines are the poppy fields. Eliminating those fields as a source of income would strike a fatal blow to the Taliban.

The Taliban are mafia drug-lords wrapped in Middle-Eastern freedom-fighter apparel. They generate $100 to $150 million annually by imposing “taxes” on opium farmers.Selling and exporting opium raises $700 to $800 million annually for the Taliban.  This allows for the purchase of arms for insurgency, terrorism and black-market tyranny. Worldwide, Afghan heroin fuels 93 percent of a $65 billion trade, far surpassing all of Mexico, Southeast Asia and South America combined. The United Nations estimates between 15 to 21 million people use this highly addictive drug. Afghan heroin alone kills over 100,000 people each year, outweighing the U.S. combat losses of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Grenada and Vietnam combined.

Our current policy of agricultural transformation allows the cultivation of opium poppies until economic incentives prompt farmers to take up other crops such as pomegranates and grapes. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2009 Annual Report, opium production has doubled under U.S. occupation and is so bountiful that the Taliban has reportedly stored 12,000 tons of opium, which can supply the entire world for three years. We need a new plan.

If the poppy fields in Afghanistan were eradicated, this would annihilate the Taliban’s primary source of funding. This in turn would eliminate their ability to corrupt the Karzi government, buy arms, cause terror, protect al-Qaeda and buy foreign influence. It is the single, clearest solution and would end the havoc in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan while devastating world heroin trafficking in a matter of weeks. This is a win-win strategy.

Proponents against the eradication of Afghanistan’s poppy fields argue that world demand will only increase production in other areas, making poppy destruction a useless endeavor. “If Afghanistan were suddenly wiped out as a producer of opium—by bad weather or a blight or eradication efforts—other parts of the world would simply emerge as new producers,” said Founding Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance Ethan Nadelmann. This assumption, while based on the law of supply and demand, ignores the difficulties associated with expanding any type of production from clearing and preparing new land and setting up irrigation. Moreover, counter-drug operations performed in the United States and elsewhere use crop eradication as a means. Focused on the drug factor alone, Mr. Nadelmann misses the larger point: Destroying Afghan’s poppy fields would bankrupt the Taliban, preventing them from resupplying arms and killing Americans.

Others believe increased Taliban recruitment is the primary objection to field destruction. U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are both on record saying that destroying the poppy fields would strengthen the Taliban and that every disenfranchised farmer would become a Taliban recruit. That may be the case with the devastation of one or two fields, but it will not be the case with total destruction of any and all poppy fields.

A counterargument to this is that when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan almost three decades ago, opium production increased in response to increased arms expenditures. This shows that the economic needs of the insurgent army drive production. Moreover, eight-years of permissiveness have allowed the Taliban to strengthen their forces to an all-time high. In fact, 2009 was the highest loss of life for U.S. and NATO forces. Permitting opium production did not eliminate or curb the Taliban. Another point is that when seasonal cultivation ends, the Taliban gains strengths as most of the opium farmers become fighters and take up arms after the harvest.

One of the fiercest arguments against the destruction of Afghanistan poppy fields is that if opium production is eliminated it will destroy the Afghanistan economy. First, no one makes that argument for Mexican drug-dealers or marijuana cultivators in California.  Second, if the crops were removed the Taliban would collapse, Afghanistan would become safe and foreign investment money would flow into that country. More to the point, Afghan farmer’s gross revenues from opium is about $1 billion dollars according to 2007 U.N. estimates, while our 2007 U.S. Military operations cost taxpayers $35 billion. Therefore, the plan should be: burn the fields, crush the Taliban, send the boys home, send one billion in aid and save $34 billion a year.

The U.S. dominates the air in Afghanistan. Poppy fields grow in full sunlight, and forests do not obscure the poppy fields. Eradication efforts will not be hampered by a lack of discovery. Modern herbicides are quite safe and effective, as well as the use of tractors to plow the fields under. When the Afghan farmer is faced with the choice of taking U.S. assistance to grow legal crops or face total eradication of his crops and imprisonment, he will be far more motivated than he currently is to switch his crops.

In the past, the United States did not have the ability to eradicate those fields. Now, we are the occupier of Afghanistan and have the capacity and the duty to destroy this trade. Every poppy that grows empowers the Taliban with more artillery that will be used to kill American soldiers and Marines. No one has more power than Mr. Obama to dispatch the largest source of heroin export in the world. If he really wants get out of Afghanistan and cares about our troops, he must destroy those fields.

-Michael Fowler is the director of Veterans for Academic Freedom, a former Force Recon Marine, instructor of Christian apologetics, author and talk-radio host

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Eh, maybe, maybe not. Perhaps we’re not looking at this story objectively. In fact, there is too much emotion involved in how people are reacting to the possibility that this international law enforcement organization could become a centralized police power. Unless there is such a drastic plan in place, it just isn’t feasible but some things are always worthy of investigation. INTERPOL’s purpose is to serve as a hub for information sharing, intelligence, training of law enforcement agencies worldwide. It’s no different than cops back home; when a call takes them to another jurisdiction they call ahead and ask the guys at the other end to be on the alert. INTERPOL is pretty much like that; it helps agencies track statistical data as well, assists in the search for fugitives and their apprehension. INTERPOL in that context is not a bad thing. The fact is that amending EO-12425 is not as significant in itself because there are some other elements missing at this time.

If you look at INTERPOL from a different perspective, say, how could they actually accomplish having all of these powers that we are so afraid of then we must see how that is structured. One of the agency’s accomplishments in 2009 was the successful introduction of the INTERPOL passport. This passport is designed to function just like any other passport however it has been enhanced to afford expediency for teams or individuals who are invited to any of the member countries, all 188 of them, to pass through customs and passport control without interference. I suppose these individuals must be thoroughly vetted before being given such easy access into a country. The US sends plenty of FBI people overseas to assist in counterterrorism investigations all the time but I am sure that these teams can get expedited passage with their credentials. Still, law enforcement travel is tricky so countries track these individuals. Does such a passport mean fast entry but how about monitoring movement in country? Maybe there is something in the language of INTERPOL’s Secretary General that got me thinking:

“When member countries ask INTERPOL for assistance to prevent, investigate, or respond to any terrorist act, serious crime or natural disaster, the safety and security of their citizens may depend on INTERPOL being in place as fast as possible,” said Secretary General Noble.

“That a person is travelling with an INTERPOL passport for official business should be all the information a country needs in order to grant them access. By agreeing to waive visas for INTERPOL passport holders, member countries will ultimately be assisting themselves,” added Mr Noble.

INTERPOL is entering the much needed aspect of police peacekeeping and peace-building operations. You’ve probably heard the term peacekeeping more in relation to police actions such as the intervention in the Balkans of the 1990s. I am saying ‘much-needed’ for a legitimate reason. The importance of an international police force that will help military elements establish and maintain the rule of law in occupied countries has been debated and suggested for many years. The invasion of Iraq in 2003 at first appeared to be beneficial and it was expected that the population would be cooperative. The intention is always to establish the rule of law as soon as combat operations are stable or stop in order to assist the local people re-enter a period of rehabilitation. War is stressful and disrupts the normal lives of people; that’s a given. Stability operations in Iraq went awry five weeks after Coalition troops invaded. Forget the search for Saddam Hussein; the changes going on in Iraqi society took place quickly and violently. Suddenly Iraqis were left with the euphoric feeling of freedom from a tyrant then moved on to the realization that without those social and political controls they could do what they wanted.

This is a good thing because there is a need for a dedicated constabulary to deploy not only in peace time but during the stability phase following the cessation of military operations. It is also the stuff the U.S. is attempting to do in Iraq and Afghanistan; to rebuild their countries from the bottom up. The International Criminal Court – which seeks jurisdiction in the U.S. as it has in other countries – would be more involved in American law and order at all but then it needs an enforcement branch in order to be effective. At any rate, something is missing in the equation. The ICC goes hand in hand with the UN (under war crimes tribunal, not for the persecution – prosecution of individual parties but of countries) and INTERPOL is wrapped nicely inside that circle. The question is how realistic is the possibility of these forces deploying to the U.S.

Theory:

Get acquainted with these terms; stability operations or nation building.
To have a foreign police force deploy to the U.S. it must be due to an invitation by that country or international police authority for them to come. What is different here is the absence of a crisis big enough to warrant such an invitation. After all, that is what happens to other countries, such as it happened in the Balkans, Iraq or Afghanistan where political and military instability threaten the stability of neighboring states or faces total collapse. Given the number of small incidents occurring nationwide after the Delta flight attack, a power grid shutdown during winter, an outbreak of the flu in Florida, civil disobedience, etc. could be considered emergencies or crises that can be handled by a peaceful people and there is no need for an international intervention. What if the economy collapses? Maybe as events accumulate over time things will not look so good for us. Scattered terrorist attacks may give the perception that we are in such trouble that we must outsource our security from others as we have done before. If such a police force is vetted so have passports that allow them to enter any member country easily, does the U.S. have any input on their background?
Worst yet can someone’s background be falsified? Are we sure those cops are really who they say they are?
Just wondering.

Executive Order 12425

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-amending-executive-order-12425

Order on Interpol inside U.S. irks Conservatives

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/31/world/31interpol.html

The White House press release of executive order establishing the council of governors

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-signs-executive-order-establishing-council-governors

OBAMA WATCH CENTRAL
Obama gives foreign cops new police powers in U.S.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=120363

http://www.interpol.int/

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We shut the aircraft down and what we saw was 350 plus people ranging in ages from 6 months to old and gray standing silently at a fence watching our every movement. I walked around the nose of my aircraft a mere 150 feet away from this crowd, I gave a simple smile and raised my arm up over my head and was greeted with the most substantial roar of levity that I have ever heard in my life. 350 plus people were cheering. Not because I play an instrument in some notable band, acted in a big Hollywood movie, or wrote some famous novel. They were cheering because I am part of something bigger than that. I am part of a team made up of men and women who all wear a uniform of some kind symbolized by a colorful patch known as the Stars and Stripes. A team that helped liberate an entire culture of people almost killed off because they were different. Like the Americans were to the Jews we are to the Kurds.

Before I ramble anymore about this occasion I feel that I am obligated to expose you to what happened to these people. Halajba, the town we flew too, sits directly on the Iranian border. In fact almost a one quarter of the town is in Iran. During the 1980s there was a conflict known as the Iran/Iraq war. This city was at the frontlines of this battle. Historically speaking the Kurdish people have been oppressed and looked down upon by their Arab counterparts in Iraq because they are not Arabic. They are different. They are a melting pot of many different beliefs; their cultural heritage stems across every religion known to man. This diversity sets them apart and makes them great. Well Islamic Arabs known as Sunni and Shia don’t have a good history of liking people who are different. The perfect illustration of this is the fact that the Sunni and Shia can’t even agree on their own religion. Minor differences between these two branches such as how many times a day they pray, certain important figures in their history, and different holidays is grounds enough for them to not even like each other. Now the Kurds have always been at the bottom of this hierarchy; Saddam was a Sunni and for many years the Sunni Arabs had a good life. The Shia and Kurds were oppressed by this regime quite fiercely with the The Kurds receiving the brunt of it. During the Iran/Iraq war Saddam bombed many cities like this without remorse simply because they were Kurdish. Many ruined cityscapes still litter this country side from that conflict. If that wasn’t enough in 1987 Saddam organized an operation completely aimed at eradicating or otherwise imprisoning every Kurd in the country. It began with interment into concentration style camps outside of the major cities. This was followed by the bombing of Kurdish cities. All this climaxed in 1988 when Saddam launched a massive chemical weapons attack which left over 5,000 fatalities in Halajba alone. The final toll of Kurdish fatalities ranged from 300,000 to 500,000 killed. Thousands more wounded and imprisoned. All this was because they were different.

Today was a side of the war that I had never before seen. I saw the fighting last time I was here. The tracers illuminating the night skies, the bombs and hellfires being dropped on insurgents while inserting fresh troops and pulling out the dead and wounded ones. I saw the fear and terror that people can leash upon one another. The awesome horrific sight of what firepower can do to soft skin targets of both friendlies and enemies. I was prepared to go to war again. To see and experience those horrific moments not often spoken about by those who were there. Today I stood in awe as I was thanked, not by a passerby at the airport or some restaurant I was eating at, but by an entire nation of people that we as a team helped save and preserve. Because of our efforts, which started after the first Gulf War to present, these people have emerged as a supreme culture of individuals at once on the brink of extinction. This is no longer a war as far as a traditional definition would go; it is about the people of Iraq now. It’s not about bullets and bombs but handshakes and smiles. We have done our job and we did it well and I don’t care what any peace loving tree hugging hippy says after watching CNN because today I was personally thanked by more people of another country then that of my own country. If that is not a testament to the job that we have done here than I do not know what is. These are free people who have lived with 3,000 years of oppression. They are free because of our efforts. They are free because of our sacrifice.

Feel free to pass this story and pictures along to every American. It is our duty to make sure that they know the truth about what we are doing over here and the results of those efforts. The liberal media would try and disgrace our sacrifice or otherwise downplay the importance of our mission in Iraq and that is just not fair to the fighting men and women of the United States of America. This is a reminder to those liberal hippies that sometimes there are people in this world who need a good ass kicking to help save the little guy and no one does it better than an American Soldier. Hooah!

SGT Christopher A. Hoffert
Afghanistan ‘04-’05, Iraq ‘06-’07, and ‘09-’10
Alpha Company 3rd Battalion 25th Combat Aviation Brigade
FOB Diamondback, Iraq
3 Oct 2009

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By Michael Fowler

Since the sixties, Noam Chomsky has been calling the United States an imperialist nation and continues to do so, now saying U.S. actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are imperialist. The purpose of Mr. Chomsky’s’ philosophy is to destroy the legitimacy of any and all acts of force by an ethical, lawful state. In essence, Mr. Chomsky asserts that such a state is identical to barbarians who use force for self-interest, i.e. dictators and fascists. By doing this, Mr. Chomsky is willing to put heroes such as policemen and soldiers on the same level as villains such as murderers and terrorists.

According to Mr. Chomsky’s twisted reasoning, “…torture has been routine practice from the early days of the conquest of the national territory, and then beyond, as the imperial ventures of the “infant empire” — as George Washington called the new Republic” (The Torture Memos, Chomsky, May 24, 2009). He believes that George Bush was simply following some “secret” mandate from Washington to expand the empire through the use of torture. To buttress his case, he cites the Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis,“Adams as the grand strategist who laid the foundations for the Bush Doctrine: the doctrine that ‘expansion is the path to security’” (The Unipolar Moment and the Culture of Imperialism, Chomsky, December 3, 2009). Yes, John Adams (1735 – 1826) is responsible for the War on Terror, not the 19 terrorists who orchestrated the takeover of four commercial planes on September 11, 2001, killing thousands of innocent people. You can learn a lot at college.

Mr. Chomsky slanders Washington as a vile Machiavellian: ”A prince that acquires new territories and removes the natives to give his people room will be remembered as the father of the nation (Machiavelli).’ And George Washington agreed. He wanted to be the father of the nation. His view was that ‘the gradual extension of our settlement will as certainly cause the savage as the wolf to retire, both being beasts of prey, though they differ in shape.” (Modern-Day American Imperialism: Middle East and Beyond, Chomsky, Boston University, April 24, 2008)

Mr. Chomsky bases this statement from Letter to James Duane dated September 7, 1783.  In his letter, Washington was appealing for a non-violent resolution with the Indians and to find peaceful means of living with them on a common land, not advocating war. “As the Country, is large enough to contain us all; and as we are disposed to be kind to them and to partake of their Trade…draw a veil over what is past and establish a boundary line between them and us beyond which we will endeavor to restrain our People from Hunting or Settling.” Washington’s intent to Duane was clear: peaceful means of coexistence.

His thought that directly precedes Mr. Chomsky lifted quote is this, “I am clear in my opinion, … of being upon good terms with the Indians, and the propriety of purchasing their Lands in preference to attempting to drive them by force of arms out of their Country; which as we have already experienced is like driving the Wild Beasts of the Forest…”  In other words, if you make war with the Indians, they will scatter in the country side and return to hunt you down, as they are to be respected as is the wolf.

Mr. Chomsky lacks credibility because he has to rely on fabrication of events in order to support his opinions. Fabrication is part of the leftist anti-War movement which is really the leftist/socialist “Make America Surrender” movement.

The second part is asserting that equal actions (war and terrorism) are equal in ethics.  Everyone agrees that murder is evil, and murder is caused by killing. However, not all killing is evil—certainly, accidents and self-defense stand out as two exceptions.  Chomsky must assert, for his reasoning to be sound, all value judgments can be based on actions alone and not on intentions; he confuses actions and intentions. In contrast, Western ethics are quite clear in saying that a person can commit the very same action with more than one intent. Every child knows that you can step on someone’s toes with or without harmful intent, yet the action is the same.

Here is perfect example of his inability to separate actions and ethics: “…the most elementary principle of just war theory, universality. Those who cannot accept this principle should have the decency to keep silent about matters of right and wrong, or just war”(Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival, 2003, pg 202). He follows this assertion with the question, “Have Cuba and Nicaragua been entitled to set off bombs in Washington, New York, and Miami in self-defense against ongoing terrorist attack?”  His point is that any and all states have equal right to the use of force or no one has it, “universality.” This is a complete failure on his part to differentiate between fascist dictators and communist death-squads from those who have no other self-interested motive other than justice.

The greatest danger of Mr. Chomsky’s anti-war ethics and lies is that it fuels the anti-war movement. Moreover, it paves the way for the college student to believe that power exists without justice as a limiting factor. Thus, making it moral to quest for power for power’s own sake, which is foundational to Marxist thought. But all power must be subservient to justice and the law, especially when American national security is at stake.

-Michael Fowler is the director of Veterans for Academic Freedom, a former Force Recon Marine, instructor of Christian apologetics, author and talk-radio host.

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[Because of the extraordinary response to Maj. Jim Gant's paper, One Tribe At A Time, I've decided to leave it up all week in the "Number One Slot."  My ongoing interview with Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai will pick again next Friday; the Chief has been in Kabul all week, meeting with U.S. and British commanders, and we haven't had time to speak. So all's well that ends well!]

The downloadable and open-able .pdf of One Tribe is here, on the right. On a personal note, let me say again that I consider it a privilege to offer this document in full, not only because of my great respect for Maj. Jim Gant, who has lived and breathed this Tribal Engagement idea for years, but for the piece itself and for the influence it is already having within the U.S. military and policymaking community.

[download id="4"] Major Jim Gant’s “One Tribe At A Time” to your computer

One Tribe At A Time is by no means a super-pro Beltway think tank piece. What it is, in my opinion, is an idea whose time has come, put forward by an officer who has lived it in the field with his Special Forces team members–and proved it can be done. And an officer, by the way, who is ready this instant to climb aboard a helicopter to go back to Afghanistan and do it again.

Questions and comments

At the moment, Maj. Gant is at Fort Polk, Louisiana, getting ready to deploy to Iraq, where he will lead an Iraqi commando battalion. He’ll be available in the meantime, however (depending of course upon time demands), to answer questions or take criticisms. Just respond in the comments section below. And I myself have further thoughts I’d like to offer on this subject in the coming weeks.

Here’s a quick one:

The most common response I anticipate to the Tribal Engagement concept (and it’s a valid criticism, shared by Maj. Gant) will go something like this: “Yeah, this is a great idea–but where are we going to find the men to implement it?”

Men for the job

Tribal Engagement Team members, should this concept be adopted, would be called upon to commit for multiple tours under the loneliest, harshest and most hazardous conditions imaginable. To succeed with the tribe they are assigned to, they would have to demonstrate impeccable combat credentials and, even rarer, possess the “people skills” to establish and maintain rapport across a cultural chasm—Western to Tribal Afghan—that has defeated every outside entity from Alexander the Great to the British and the Soviets. The task would be extraordinarily difficult, dirty and dangerous, and in the end would almost certainly be rewarded neither by career advancement (because the enterprise would be unprecedented and outside the normal channels of military promotion) nor by recognition from the public at large, who in all probability will rarely hear of it and wouldn’t understand or appreciate it if they did.

How can we identify and attract such men?

Do you remember this tiny, three-line ad from the London Times, December 29, 1913?

Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honour and recognition in case of success.

5000 volunteers queued up in response to this advertisement, posted by Ernest Shackleton seeking crewmen for his Antarctic expedition.

I may be wrong, but I don’t think our young American warriors would respond with any less enthusiasm than their British cousins did a century ago to a similar call. Do you?

Again, many thanks to Maj. Jim Gant for writing One Tribe At A Time, to Printer Bowler for designing and editing the .pdf and to Callie Oettinger for managing the outreach. I’m proud to put this document in circulation with as much reach as this modest blog can offer. We all hope it proves of interest and of use.

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The US/CIA experience in Vietnam should give us plenty of evidence that there are more advantages to running COIN operations in today’s global war on terror than in conducting conventional warfare option. It is even more evident that if we were to plan and execute a sound ‘pacification’ plan in Iraq or Afghanistan, then there must be some elements of COIN at play to help balance out how we mitigate growing insurgent operations. They are smarter and faster at learning U.S. order of battle so how we fight is not a big secret.

In Vietnam the same problem was encountered by the CIA as the North Vietnamese already had extensive documentation of CIA doctrine in conducting air drops, employing stay-behind units, etc. without the benefit of helping that country make changes from within. Obviously, the CIA was fairly confident it could continue to make drops and lose team after team yet they did not factor in the possibility their teams had been compromised time after time. Maybe sheer dumb luck made some missions successful and still, they were failures for a long-term solution.

First, the CIA did not know the North Vietnamese had been consistently studying its methodology and quickly executing countermeasures and mostly obtained this information from the Chinese. Second, incursions carried out into a closed society must accompany a much more comprehensive plan. Once on the ground, units would have to depend on their limited training and then if they landed close enough to populated areas they were instructed to stay low for short periods of time gathering information. But then there was no plan in how to approach locals other than maybe clerics or family members and that alone always posed a great risk to the team members, thus really not accomplishing much but to get them killed or captured and tried.

There was little consideration for exploiting political and ideological angles within the population; at least just not right away. Eventually this reality would manifest itself fully. The suggestion by the CIA to President Kennedy was to engage the population with these psychological techniques, to create the illusion that there was a nascent revolutionary movement at play within North Vietnam and create the threat from within. This approach would have been a proper complement to paramilitary operations, since that could have been the second stage; to actually carry out clandestine operations, sabotage, and a direct attack on the government machine.

There was some of this work involved in the post-invasion stability operations in Japan and Germany, and these are two success stories that need to be studied more. When the allies moved in looked around and started to guide these countries into a post-war, they already had a plan, the intelligence base to tell them where to begin securing the population (borders) supervising local police and basically keeping track of everything the locals did before a turn-over could take place.

So how do we carry out these incursions and do we conduct part sabotage/assassination (just as the Israelis did) while we conduct aggressive PSYOPS campaigns? Even disinformation and propaganda efforts must carry a purpose and that is to engender in the local population the need to fight for their future. Initially the CIA’s intention was to help the Vietnamese become independent from any foreign intervention in the end and this is the basis for stability operations.

The employment of irregular forces (indigenous) is of great importance because they have a vested interest in not only fighting an insurgency such as Iraq, but also to gradually wean themselves from foreign intervention, which is the main purpose of introducing stability operations (nation-building). This has not always been a well carried out concept, as we seem to engage countries with cultures totally different from ours and often we fail to recognize that those differences will affect the outcome of any conflict and how that culture will survive post-conflict/invasion.

The absence of the rule of law is the first factor that must be either established or maintained if already present in the targeted environment. Efforts of pacification were disrupted constantly by the VCI by threatening those people and agencies working on re-building the country with military attacks. Though the allies were able to fight the VCI successfully and provide protection for these activities imagine any NGO working in the field or that matter civil affairs unit while under fire. The first thing that should be provided to the non-combatant population is security. They either get it from their government with foreign assistance or they fall under the rule of insurgent groups and historically the populations do not well at all. That was a critical development in Algeria where the French government allowed more than one political fringe group to develop and begin conducting counterintelligence operations separate from government support then had to try and control more than one group with civilians at greatest risk who were ultimately main victims of hostilities. The French allowed Algerian populations to be stripped of their identities in order to make counterintelligence efforts more difficult and people were chased away from their homes by all factions so there was no security for them.

The Iraq parallel

We’ve tried this endeavor before and had been successful which I wonder if much thought was given to the application of the principles involved in stability operations in addition to the rule of law is the continuity of governance, this includes social and government services, local services, trash pickup, electrical power, potable water, police, border/population control, etc. The greatest examples are post-invasion Germany and Japan. In both cases military police were deployed to conduct law enforcement operations while there was a controlled environment of the population and local government that enabled social growth and the beginning of rebuilding their infrastructure. This could not be done if hostilities were still a consideration, from either conventional or insurgent forces. In the case of Iraq those elements of security and of continuity of governance were absent, combat forces thrust into the realm of law enforcement duties were lacking in training and experience; the difference between fighting a shooting war and maintaining law and order have had a long-term impact on life here. Reconstruction efforts can easily slow down or stop in the presence of violence, whether from insurgent activity or rampant criminality or a combination of both. This has been the case in Iraq.

The VCI also operated openly in populated areas unlike insurgents in Iraq, who opt for a more covert approach but then in some areas they do make themselves known throughout neighborhoods. Iraq insurgents don’t show the highly organized military organization as did the VCI in that the Iraqis did not form a shadow government to run counter to the local government but then there was none to speak of for a while so I guess the CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) at first tried to establish a fresh government once Saddam’s regime elements were removed causing a chaotic situation which grew out of control.

I wonder, and would like to get some feedback on this, if some of you who have worked in this field directly could clarify how coalition forces could have gained more ground here by utilizing a COIN approach after the invasion and early enough in the game. Before the mass exodus of government personnel, the sacking of businesses and attacks on police stations and police elements – and I do consider the fact that the potential for those attacks was unfortunately ignored as a possibility – would have been more advantageous because the people of Iraq, though living in authoritarian but controlled environment, would have been more keen on participating in their own liberation afterwards. COIN can easily influence positive or negative political and social change in a country and an effective tool to aid in establishing the stability process.
A combined approach

I don’t want to complain without offering some sort of theoretical plan just as a mental exercise. I could see introducing COIN operations during conventional hostilities to help build an intelligence foundation we could use once things de-escalate enough to begin the stability phase. I’m not saying that using elite units to carry out sabotage missions while others carry out pure SPYOPS within the population could not work. First we would have to link up with the locals and build the necessary networks and we know from experience that native forces and other government structures will have to come into play because the nature of nation building is to return that country to an improved state of peace.

By removing the threat to security in this effort we’re increasing our success rate, of course, this cannot be edged in stone as the nature of warfare is ever changing and not every threat to our operations can be mitigated ahead of time. Perhaps there should be a series of scenarios, preferably worst case scenarios already worked out to aid in the introduction of NGOs as well as a trained and capable constabulary waiting to deploy. Combat troops should have some exposure to law enforcement training but that is not their main purpose and only a civilian constabulary should be in place to assist with these duties.

In essence, had we employed of COIN action before the loss of law and order as it stood before the invasion, the overall environment might have been more accommodating to a continuation of routine life in Iraq while helping them re-build. It’s just a theory but COIN would have been more effective in pushing the Iraqis into wanting their situation to return to some level of normalcy. Just like the Northern Vietnam PSYOPS campaigns, the objective would be to create a real or illusionary revolution or political movement to get the population to be more receptive to change and to reject helping the insurgency. A strong government in place is another necessary element which did not exist in Iraq post-invasion unlike the Vietnamese who had at least strong leadership from the top and was able to rally the people to be part of the fight. This could only be done with the balanced combination of COIN and local support. I think if this is not currently the doctrine to use COIN along with all other military and clandestine resources then that could be the future of warfare; prepare them ahead of time for what’s to come – whatever many outcomes we can devise – unlike current doctrine which to me, appears to mitigate problems as they come up…little or no vision of potential issues.

Sources:
The Coalition Provisional Authority’s Experience with Governance in Iraq, Celeste Ward, United States Institute of Peace, May 2005, www.usip.org
The Coalition Provisional Authority’s Experience with Public Security in Iraq, Robert Perito, United States Institute of Peace, April 2005, www.usip.org
U.S. Police in Peace and Stability Operations, Robert Perito, United States Institute of Peace, August 2007, www.usip.org

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CENTCOM in 2010: Views from General David H. Petraeus
Friday, January 22, 2010

Stretching from Egypt to Yemen, Iran and Pakistan, General David H. Petraeus commands the most challenging area of responsibility in the war against terrorism. In addition to deterring non-state aggressors, he also oversees the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Friday morning, January 22nd, the Institute for the Study of War held an on-the-record conversation with General Petraeus hosted by ISW President, Dr. Kimberly Kagan. General Petraeus discussed his competing regional priorities at U.S. Central Command and offered a strategic overview of his AOR, explaining the dynamic effect it has on American national security.

Please see transcript link above.

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Targeting the Taliban
By Michael Fowler

The simplest and safest way to thwart an enemy’s ability to conduct war is to destroy their supply lines. This is an old and useful tactic from the time of King Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562) of Babylon. His armies would surround their hapless victims who had taken refuge in forts, cut off all supplies, including water and food, until famine weakened their army, and then attack. This is a brutal but effective military ploy. We have been in Afghanistan for eight years—and neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration has effectively utilized this strategy.

The solution to winning the war in Afghanistan is to destroy the Taliban’s ability to make war, causing the decimation of the Taliban war machine. The Taliban’s supply lines are the poppy fields. Eliminating those fields as a source of income would strike a fatal blow to the Taliban.

The Taliban are mafia drug-lords wrapped in Middle-Eastern freedom-fighter apparel. They generate $100 to $150 million annually by imposing “taxes” on opium farmers.Selling and exporting opium raises $700 to $800 million annually for the Taliban. This allows for the purchase of arms for insurgency, terrorism and black-market tyranny. Worldwide, Afghan heroin fuels 93 percent of a $65 billion trade, far surpassing all of Mexico, Southeast Asia and South America combined. The United Nations estimates between 15 to 21 million people use this highly addictive drug. Afghan heroin alone kills over 100,000 people each year, outweighing the U.S. combat losses of Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Grenada and Vietnam combined.

Our current policy of agricultural transformation allows the cultivation of opium poppies until economic incentives prompt farmers to take up other crops such as pomegranates and grapes. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2009 Annual Report, opium production has doubled under U.S. occupation and is so bountiful that the Taliban has reportedly stored 12,000 tons of opium, which can supply the entire world for three years. We need a new plan.

If the poppy fields in Afghanistan were eradicated, this would annihilate the Taliban’s primary source of funding. This in turn would eliminate their ability to corrupt the Karzi government, buy arms, cause terror, protect al-Qaeda and buy foreign influence. It is the single, clearest solution and would end the havoc in southern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan while devastating world heroin trafficking in a matter of weeks. This is a win-win strategy.

Proponents against the eradication of Afghanistan’s poppy fields argue that world demand will only increase production in other areas, making poppy destruction a useless endeavor. “If Afghanistan were suddenly wiped out as a producer of opium—by bad weather or a blight or eradication efforts—other parts of the world would simply emerge as new producers,” said Founding Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance Ethan Nadelmann. This assumption, while based on the law of supply and demand, ignores the difficulties associated with expanding any type of production from clearing and preparing new land and setting up irrigation. Moreover, counter-drug operations performed in the United States and elsewhere use crop eradication as a means. Focused on the drug factor alone, Mr. Nadelmann misses the larger point: Destroying Afghan’s poppy fields would bankrupt the Taliban, preventing them from resupplying arms and killing Americans.

Others believe increased Taliban recruitment is the primary objection to field destruction. U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates are both on record saying that destroying the poppy fields would strengthen the Taliban and that every disenfranchised farmer would become a Taliban recruit. That may be the case with the devastation of one or two fields, but it will not be the case with total destruction of any and all poppy fields.

A counterargument to this is that when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan almost three decades ago, opium production increased in response to increased arms expenditures. This shows that the economic needs of the insurgent army drive production. Moreover, eight-years of permissiveness have allowed the Taliban to strengthen their forces to an all-time high. In fact, 2009 was the highest loss of life for U.S. and NATO forces. Permitting opium production did not eliminate or curb the Taliban. Another point is that when seasonal cultivation ends, the Taliban gains strengths as most of the opium farmers become fighters and take up arms after the harvest.

One of the fiercest arguments against the destruction of Afghanistan poppy fields is that if opium production is eliminated it will destroy the Afghanistan economy. First, no one makes that argument for Mexican drug-dealers or marijuana cultivators in California. Second, if the crops were removed the Taliban would collapse, Afghanistan would become safe and foreign investment money would flow into that country. More to the point, Afghan farmer’s gross revenues from opium is about $1 billion dollars according to 2007 U.N. estimates, while our 2007 U.S. Military operations cost taxpayers $35 billion. Therefore, the plan should be: burn the fields, crush the Taliban, send the boys home, send one billion in aid and save $34 billion a year.

The U.S. dominates the air in Afghanistan. Poppy fields grow in full sunlight, and forests do not obscure the poppy fields. Eradication efforts will not be hampered by a lack of discovery. Modern herbicides are quite safe and effective, as well as the use of tractors to plow the fields under. When the Afghan farmer is faced with the choice of taking U.S. assistance to grow legal crops or face total eradication of his crops and imprisonment, he will be far more motivated than he currently is to switch his crops.

In the past, the United States did not have the ability to eradicate those fields. Now, we are the occupier of Afghanistan and have the capacity and the duty to destroy this trade. Every poppy that grows empowers the Taliban with more artillery that will be used to kill American soldiers and Marines. No one has more power than Mr. Obama to dispatch the largest source of heroin export in the world. If he really wants get out of Afghanistan and cares about our troops, he must destroy those fields.

-Michael Fowler is the director of Veterans for Academic Freedom, a former Force Recon Marine, instructor of Christian apologetics, author and talk-radio host.

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Vietnam, the Media and Lies

by Bill  Laurie

“There were some worthy, honest, and intelligent reporters in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. Dickey Chapelle, Robert Shaplen, Liz Trotta, Peter Braestrup, Hugh Mulligan, Keyes Beech, Neil Davis, Denis Warner, were among those who objectively, and without resort to sensationalism, conveyed elements of truth, parts of the puzzle, to the American public. Their efforts notwithstanding, the fog of nonsense spewed out by others obscured and effectively censored honest, logical, comprehensive reporting, denying the American public information needed to develop accurately informed opinions. News media malfeasance was complemented by brilliant manipulative Hanoi propaganda, and a corresponding U.S. government inability or unwillingness to make a case for its own efforts. The American public could not hope to understand what was taking place, and does not today.

No one, least of all South Vietnamese, American, or other allied forces, was oblivious of or happy with the endemic corruption and incompetence, yet, because of flawed and narrowly focused “reporting,” the story of South Vietnam’s progress and improvement remains untold. American reporters never wrote or televised stories about DR, Phan Quang Dan, Gen. Ngo Quang Truong, Gen. Nguyen Khoa Nam, the 81st Biet Kich, the Hau Nghia RF, Col. Mach Van Truong, Gen. Le Minh Dao, Tran Ngoc Chau, Col. Ha Mai Viet, writer Nguyen Manh Con, or RVN Marine Sergeant Van Luom, who stood alone on the Dong Ha Bridge and knocked out the lead tank in an NVA armor column with a shoulder-fired antitank missile, an act, in the words of an American witness, of inspiring “defiance and bravery.”
Knowing little of this, the American public was understandably disenchanted.

The news media seldom, if ever, accompanied American or Australian troops on MEDCAPS or DENTCAPs (Dental Civic Action Projects, extremely welcome to rural people with painful tooth conditions). In the first six months of 1969, more than 200,000 villagers received medical care and 15,000 received dental care from the 3rd U.S. Marine division alone. Instead, the American public was subjected to repeated coverage of the My Lai atrocity, which, like the photo of Gen. Loan, was considered symbolic and representative of the entire war.

Wolfgang Leonhard, a Soviet communist agent before defecting to the West, was tasked with analyzing Western news media stories. He and his colleagues were puzzled over superficial news coverage predominating in the newspapers they read. “Generally, we could only shake our heads over them, and often we were exceedingly disappointed. There was usually not even mention of the really significant events that were causing endless discussions amongst ourselves and on which we were passionately eager to read a serious Western commentary. ‘They don’t seem to know what is going on’ was the main theme of our conversations when we talked to each other on the subject.”

One of the more tragic ironies of Vietnam and the news media failure is that there were many fascinating and positive stories to be told. The American people would have appreciated seeing hour-long specials on, for example, U.S. Marine Corps CAP units, a squad of 14 Marines living in one hamlet for their entire tour, working with and defending “their “ hamlet alongside local PF. USMC CAPs had a higher voluntary extension rate than among their line unit counterparts. Why? It would have made for a good story. It would have been equally enlightening to see programs showing U.S. troops helping an orphanage, or volunteering to teach English. The American public deserved to know about a VNAF Skyraider pilot who had been shot down five times, and continued flying, despite his several fused vertebrae. They deserved to know that American forces could take on the NVA, in their own backyard, and prevail. Something might have been learned from Americans who volunteered for three, four, five, six, or even seven tours as advisors, choosing to serve in Vietnam again and again, not as bloodthirsty and uncaring killers, but as very normal, decent human beings who could eloquently and convincingly explain their motivations, which was ultimately to see Vietnamese people have a life of peace and decent government. Geopolitics and the Cold War, all relatively abstract concepts, were not a primary concern, taking a back seat to basic human concerns for that which is fair.

Americans would have benefited by hearing of Captain Nguyen Quy An, Lt. Vu Tung, and Warrant Officer Nguyen Quang Hien of the famed 219 Kingbees. Were it not for the action of these men, John Litter, Bob Stratliff and Wiley L . Craney, by their own testimony, would have been killed or captured after their helicopter had been shot down in Laos. They were rescued by Captain An and his crew while under fire and surrounded by NVA. Captain An would later lose both his hands by keeping control of a burning helicopter, saving the lives of others on board who would have died had the flame-engulfed chopper fallen from the sky.

Americans were mesmerized by the NVA’s (North Vietnamese Army) 25-day hold on Hue City in 1968, and presumably would be similarly impressed by the 92nd Ranger Battalion 400-day stand at the remote base of Tong Le Chan. Completely cut off, resupplied only by air, the 92nd held, with ambulatory wounded refusing evacuation. Had an NVA unit held out for over 400 days, surrounded and cut off, it would have made headline news. The 92nd Rangers did it and nothing was said.  Had a handful of VC (Viet Cong) high school boys held off an allied attack, it would also would have made headlines. A handful of high school boys did resist VC/NVA forces at the “Truong Tieu Sinh Quan,” a junior high school military academy for sons of RVNAF (South Vietnamese) military fatalities. They resisted to the end in 1975, with twelve- and thirteen-year-old boys sending younger kids home, staying in their barricaded school and fighting on. Many of them were killed and when the Communists came in, they fought them. The Communists could not get into that academy. NVA forces eventually surrounded the school, threatened to level it with rockets, kill everyone inside, and negotiated a surrender. This last stand would presumably have had all the drama and “human interest” for a “big story,” and had VC adolescents been involved opposing RVNAF, the story would undoubtedly have been trumpeted to the American public. To this day, next to nothing has been said or printed, and the cadets at Truong Tieu Sinh Quan are not even a footnote to history.

Coverage of these stories could have gone on and should have gone side-by-side with negative reporting on corruption, civilian casualties, drug use, and other presumed universal evils of American involvement in Southeast Asia. It is neither suggested nor desired that blemishes or morally repugnant aspects be ignored or covered up. It is asserted, however, that it would have been far more honest to have contrasted examples of deplorable behavior with other aspects, not in the least rare, of which many Vietnam veterans are familiar with and participated in. Fairness and objectivity also demand that equal coverage be applied to the VC/NVA shortcomings and ruthless excesses shown in proportion to their existence and occurrence. Had all this been done, the American public would have been able to understand something, and certainly much more than the psuedo-understanding derived from the “shoot-em-up-bang-bang” reporting they were continually exposed to. For any number of reasons, “positive” news did little for a reporter’s career or ego, a career based on finding or inventing “stories” accentuating the negative while heightening public discontent.

Ignorance of military and Southeast Asia matters, of communist revolutionary warfare, fueled by potential for lucrative career advancement, unwilling or unable to report on South Vietnamese or Laotian troops except in cases of failure, apparently enthused by the visual impact of war and the destruction it causes, sometimes disdainful of South Vietnamese if not American troops while ignoring Australian, Korean, Thai, and New Zeland forces, the news media proved incapable of depicting Vietnam, and Hanoi’s War, in its entirety . The American public saw the same “bang-bang” every year, and were misled into assuming nothing had changed, nothing was accomplished. Allied temporary defeats were portrayed as permanent setbacks, while victories and accomplishments went unreported, or were, with smug theatrics, cast aside as government propaganda.

News media misrepresentation not only misled and uninformed the American public, but also prohibited its ability to think and make logical inferences on its own.

In the final analysis, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, Hanoi’s war, and American involvement could not be, and cannot be, understood, in good part because of media failings, moral, intellectual, and otherwise. Without recognizing this, and knowing that what was reported was not the all-comprehensive truth of the matter, the subject itself cannot be understood. Overall, and efforts of responsible reporters notwithstanding, the nature and extent of news media failure in Vietnam exceeds that of allied military forces who were attempting to and succeeding, despite documented lies and bumbling, to stop Hanoi’s War. Many people died and millions more have greatly suffered simply because the whole story was never told. And because what was portrayed in media reporting was demonstrably not, to use the famous Cronkite phrase, “the way it is.”  This bitter judgment is itself based on beliefs articulated by Robert Elegant, himself a journalist :

“Illusionary events reported by the press as well as real events within the press corps were more decisive than the clash of arms or the contention of ideologies. For the first time in modern history, the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield but on the printed page, and above all, on the television screen.”

Looking back coolly, I believe it can be said that South Vietnam and American forces actually won the limited military struggle. They virtually crushed the Viet Cong in the South, the “native” guerillas who were directed, reinforced, and equipped from Hanoi, and thereafter they threw back the invasion by regular North Vietnamese divisions. Nonetheless, the war was finally lost to the invaders after the U.S. disengagement because the political pressures built up by the media had made it quite impossible for Washington to maintain even the minimal material and moral support that would have enabled the Saigon regime to continue effective resistance.”  Elegant, a highly acclaimed British reporter on Vietnam, later added these terrible words:

“Never before Vietnam had the collective policy of the media sought by graphic and unremitting distortion, the victory of the enemies of the correspondents own side.”

Could this possibly be the truth about the performance of the U.S. media in Vietnam? In ending this series, from my extended observation and study of the media while on the home front during the war, this is certainly the way it looked to me. And many others. Said Senator Margaret Chase Smith, “The press has become more sympathetic to the enemy than to our own national interest.” (Congressional Record, June 16, 1971)

—Bill  Laurie -Vietnam War historian

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