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I HOPE people who say this war is unwinnable see stories like this.

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There’s No Substitute for Troops on the Ground

By Max Boot, NYT OP-ED
Published: October 21, 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan

“I HOPE people who say this war is unwinnable see stories like this. This is what winning in a counterinsurgency looks like.”Lt. Col. William F. McCollough, commander of the First Battalion, Fifth Marine Regiment, is walking me around the center of Nawa, a poor, rural district in southern Afghanistan’s strategically vital Helmand River Valley. His Marines, who now number more than 1,000, arrived in June to clear out the Taliban stronghold. Two weeks of hard fighting killed two Marines and wounded 70 more but drove out the insurgents. Since then the colonel’s men, working with 400 Afghan soldiers and 100 policemen, have established a “security bubble” around Nawa.

Colonel McCollough recalls that when they first arrived the bazaar was mostly shuttered and the streets empty. “This town was strangled by the Taliban,” he says. “Anyone who was still here was beaten, taxed or intimidated.”

Today, Nawa is flourishing. Seventy stores are open, according to the colonel, and the streets are full of trucks and pedestrians. Security is so good we were able to walk around without body armor — unthinkable in most of Helmand, the country’s most dangerous province. The Marines are spending much of their time not in firefights but in clearing canals and building bridges and schools. On those rare occasions when the Taliban try to sneak back in to plant roadside bombs, the locals notify the Marines.

The key to success in Nawa — and in other key districts from Garmsir in the south to Baraki Barak in the center — has been the infusion of additional United States troops. The overall American force in Afghanistan has grown to 68,000 from 32,000 in 2008. That has made it possible to garrison parts of the country where few if any soldiers had been stationed before. Before the Marines arrived in Nawa, for instance, there were just 40 embattled British soldiers there.

The chronic troop shortfall made it impossible to carry out the kind of population-centric counterinsurgency strategy that has paid off in countries from Malaya to Iraq. NATO forces could enter any district but not hold it. As soon as they left, the Taliban would return to wreak vengeance on anyone who had cooperated with them. One NATO general compared it to “mowing the lawn.” That ineffectual approach allowed the Taliban to regroup after 2001.

Now the coalition has enough troops to carry out a “clear, hold and build” strategy — but only in a few districts. Overall force levels remain far below what they were in Iraq during the surge — when 174,000 foreign troops worked with 430,000 Iraqi security personnel. Afghanistan, which is bigger than Iraq, has just 102,000 coalition troops and 175,000 local security forces.

That is why Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has submitted his controversial request for 40,000 additional troops. He emphasizes that this is not an inflated figure but the bare minimum required to roll back a tough, determined foe.

Some in the White House and Congress imagine that our troops can muddle along at current levels while training the Afghan security forces to take over. But this ignores the brutal logic of war: Either you have the initiative or the enemy does.

In the past few years, the Taliban have been on the march. They have been able to bring large areas of eastern and southern Afghanistan under their sway. If President Obama rejects or waters down General McChrystal’s request, he would be sending a terrible message of irresolution that would embolden the Taliban and dismay any Afghans tempted to cooperate with coalition forces. If, on the other hand, the president were to back his commander, the general would be able to maintain and build on the momentum generated by this summer’s operations.

During 10 days spent in Afghanistan at the invitation of Gen. David Petraeus, the head of Central Command, I observed that a difficult task has been further complicated by the checkered results of the Afghan election. But what seems to be conspicuously absent from the conversation in the United States is the realization that Afghanistan’s corruption problem, like its security problem, can be best addressed by additional troops.

Given what I saw and heard on my visit, I believe it is indeed possible to get Afghanistan’s politicos to do a better job — you just have to watch them closely. That’s what soldiers from the Third Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, are doing in Baraki Barak, a district of Logar Province south of Kabul, under the command of Lt. Col. Tom Gukeisen.

Like Colonel McCollough’s Marines in Nawa, Colonel Gukeisen’s soldiers have thrown a security cordon around Baraki Barak. Inside they are carrying out what they call an “extreme makeover.” Working with a support team from the State Department, they are dispensing aid dollars and enhancing the authority of the local governor, whose new district center is next to a joint Afghan-American combat outpost.

“If you’re not sticking next to the Afghans,” one American officer tells me, “they’re going to hell.” But if United States soldiers and officials do stick close by their Afghan counterparts, substantial improvements are possible. Nawa and Baraki Barak make that clear.

Poor governance is an argument for, not against, a troop surge. Only by sending more personnel, military and civilian, can President Obama improve the Afghan government’s performance, reverse the Taliban’s gains and prevent Al Qaeda’s allies from regaining the ground they lost after 9/11.

The problem with the NYT is that on the same day they ran the above article, which I think most people here would agree spotlights the successes that are possible with the correct strategy, they ran this piece of trash, which as far as I can tell, uses a bunch of fallacious arguments as to why the "surge" is a bad idea:

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October 22, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
More Troops Are a Bad Bet
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

The United States was born of our ancestors’ nationalistic resentment of a foreign power whose troops we saw as occupiers, not protectors. The British never fathomed our basic grievance — this was our land, not theirs! — so the more they cracked down, the more they empowered the American insurgency.

Given that history, you’d think we might be more sensitive to nationalism abroad. Yet the most systematic foreign-policy mistake we Americans have made in the post-World War II period has been to underestimate its potency, from Vietnam to Latin America.

We have been similarly oblivious to the strength of nationalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, particularly among the 40 million Pashtuns who live on both sides of the border there. That’s one reason the additional 21,000 troops that President Obama ordered to Afghanistan earlier this year haven’t helped achieve stability, and it’s difficult to see why 40,000 more would help either.

American policy makers were completely blindsided in recent weeks by outrage in Pakistan at the terms of our latest aid package — and if we can’t even hand out billions of dollars without triggering nationalistic resentment, don’t expect a benign reaction to tens of thousands of additional American troops.

We have been fighting in Afghanistan for twice as long as we fought in World War II, with a current price tag estimated to be more than $60 billion a year. Standard counterinsurgency ratios of troops to civilians suggest we would need 650,000 troops (including Afghans) to pacify the country. So will adding 40,000 more to the 68,000 already there make a difference to justify the additional annual cost of $10 billion to $40 billion, especially since they may aggravate the perception of Americans as occupiers?

I’ve been fascinated by Pashtuns ever since I first sneaked around the tribal areas as a university student, hiding in the luggage on tops of buses. My interviews in recent years with Pashtuns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan leave me thinking that we profoundly misunderstand the nature of the insurgency.

Some Taliban are fundamentalist ideologues who will fight us to the death. But others become fighters because they are paid to do so, because a tribal elder suggests it, because it gives them an excuse for traditional banditry, because American troops killed a cousin, or because they resent infidel forces in their land.

When Pakistani troops enter Pashtun areas, the result has sometimes been a backlash that helps extremists. If Pashtuns react that way to Punjabis, why do we think they will react better to Texans?

Indeed, modern Pashtun history is, in part, one of backlashes against overambitious modernization efforts that lacked local “buy-in.”

The American military has become far more sensitive to Afghan sensibilities in the last few years, and there are some first-rate commanders on the ground who cooperate well with local Pashtun leaders. That creates genuine stability. But all commanders cannot be above average, and a heavier military footprint almost inevitably leads to more casualties, irritation and recruitment for the Taliban.

One of the main arguments for dispatching more troops is the terrorist threat from Al Qaeda. But Steven Simon, a National Security Council official in the Clinton years who is now a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that there may be more Al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan, Yemen and perhaps Somalia than in Afghanistan.

“I’m skeptical that the war in Afghanistan is going to solve the Al Qaeda problem,” he said.

That’s not to say we should pull out, and it’s a false choice to suggest that we should either abandon Afghanistan or double down. A pullout would be a disastrous signal of American weakness and would destabilize Pakistan.

My suggestion is that we scale back our aims, for Afghanistan is not going to be a shining democracy any time soon. We should keep our existing troops to protect the cities (but not the countryside), while ramping up the training of the Afghan Army — and helping it absorb more Pashtuns to increase its legitimacy in the south. We should negotiate to peel off some Taliban commanders and draw them over to our side, while following the old Afghan tradition of “leasing” those tribal leaders whose loyalties are for rent. More aid projects, with local tribal protection, would help, as would job creation by cutting tariffs on Pakistani and Afghan exports.

Remember also that the minimum plausible cost of 40,000 troops — $10 billion — could pay for two million disadvantaged American children to go to a solid preschool. The high estimate of $40 billion would, over 10 years, pay for almost half of health care reform. Are we really better off spending that money so that more young Americans could end up spilling their blood in Afghanistan without necessarily accomplishing much more than inflaming Pashtun nationalism?

Kristof is a notorious America-hater who would have been fired for cause from a hometown weekly years ago.

He is right at home at the Times, though.

TR

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So you would prefer American newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and e-zines only run articles or opinions with which you agree and allow arguments be made for only one side of a debate? :confused:

MOO here - but Kristoff's OpEd piece - whether you agree with him and his thesis or not - offers some valid points to be pondered.* For example:

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The United States was born of our ancestors’ nationalistic resentment of a foreign power whose troops we saw as occupiers, not protectors. The British never fathomed our basic grievance — this was our land, not theirs! — so the more they cracked down, the more they empowered the American insurgency.

Given that history, you’d think we might be more sensitive to nationalism abroad. Yet the most systematic foreign-policy mistake we Americans have made in the post-World War II period has been to underestimate its potency, from Vietnam to Latin America.

We have been similarly oblivious to the strength of nationalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan,...

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Some Taliban are fundamentalist ideologues who will fight us to the death. But others become fighters because they are paid to do so, because a tribal elder suggests it, because it gives them an excuse for traditional banditry, because American troops killed a cousin, or because they resent infidel forces in their land.

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The American military has become far more sensitive to Afghan sensibilities in the last few years, and there are some first-rate commanders on the ground who cooperate well with local Pashtun leaders. That creates genuine stability. But all commanders cannot be above average, and a heavier military footprint almost inevitably leads to more casualties, irritation and recruitment...

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My suggestion is that we scale back our aims, for Afghanistan is not going to be a shining democracy any time soon.

FWIW - I'd prefer to hear them all out and be allowed to form my own opinions - but maybe that's just me, my age, my own experiences, and my woefully deficient public school education speaking again.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

* ...to weigh mentally; think deeply about; consider carefully...

Many years ago a journalism professor taught us one measurement of quality journalism was balance on the editorial page. Present all sides/ opposing opinions here so people can make an educated decision. We have too many today who only want to hear the arguments which coincide with the opinions they have already formed. Educated people should welcome opposing opinions and ideas.

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Educated people should welcome opposing opinions and ideas.

Key word here is educated. Ive learned as Ive gotten older that a you can have more degrees than a thermometer, and still in a sense not be edumacated.

Plus, offering opposing views may earn you the label of not being a "REAL" news source.

jmoho

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So you would prefer American newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and e-zines only run articles or opinions with which you agree and allow arguments be made for only one side of a debate?

MOO here - but Kristoff's OpEd piece - whether you agree with him and his thesis or not - offers some valid points to be pondered.* For example:

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FWIW - I'd prefer to hear them all out and be allowed to form my own opinions - but maybe that's just me, my age, my own experiences, and my woefully deficient public school education speaking again.

I can see that I framed my issue with Kristof's article poorly. Maybe my own woefully deficient public school education at work.;)

I read the NYT every day, partly because I feel they have better reporting than most other papers, and partly because I like to get a broad spectrum of viewpoints on any given subject. I am of the school of thought that I read as much as I can, try to pull out what seems like the relevant information from multiple sources, and then form my own opinions.

Like anyone else, I suppose I have my bias towards points of view that I agree with. That being said, I read the Max Boot article and the Nicholas Kristof article back to back yesterday morning. I found the Max Boot article to be well written and based on current and specific information illustrating his point. I felt the Kristof article was at least partly made up of several statements that are very general, not well supported, and frankly unrelated in my opinion.

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I think this is gross generalization, and it's not clear to me that even if this statement were really 100% true, that it necessarily relates directly to the war in Afghanistan. My perhaps imperfect understanding of the primary cause of the American revolution was umbrage at "taxation without representation", not British troops occupying America.

A fair amount of the reporting I have read recently from reporters who are actually in Afghanistan seems to indicate there is still a fair amount of support for U.S. forces, at least where we are implementing a successful COIN strategy.

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When Pakistani troops enter Pashtun areas, the result has sometimes been a backlash that helps extremists. If Pashtuns react that way to Punjabis, why do we think they will react better to Texans?

Again, I don't see what this statement has to do with anything. Whether the Pashtuns react well to Punjabis who may or may not be treating them with any respect has little to do with how they may react to our troops, again providing we are implementing a good COIN strategy.

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In this, he admits that we can be successful and then advocates quitting because we can't be perfect. :rolleyes: Further, the statement that a heavier military footprint "almost inevitably" will lead to further problems disregards his previous observation that we can be successful, as well as ignores the fact that a "heavier footprint" may mean having a footprint in places where we previously had none, not just having more troops in places we already are.

What I should have made more clear in my first post was that I think Kristof's article is a piece of trash not because I have a differing viewpoint, but because I feel it is poorly written.

I don't see myself as close minded or a reactionary kind of guy. I spend a fair amount of time listening to NPR and reading the NY Times - doesn't that make me almost a closet liberal?

I suggest a book by Stephen Tanner AFGHANISTAN A Military History From Alexander The Great To The War Against The Taliban especially the chapter on the Soviet Invasion and their strategy to secure their gains.

The ". . . suggestion is that we scale back our aims, for Afghanistan is not going to be a shining democracy any time soon. We should keep our existing troops to protect the cities (but not the countryside), looks particularly soviet. Afghanistan has a central government only because the rest of the world insists upon it. Everything in Afghanistan is local what isn't local is family and tribe. We need the military to stay the hell out of the main cities -- Herat, Kandahar, Kabul and Mar-i Sharif and concentrate on the countryside to deny the bad guys access and freedom of movement. We need to win over the people in the countryside. The resistance to the Soviets was not a city movement.
Give over the cities to the Talban? Not hardly. All the Taliban have to do to lose support in the cities is kill civilians, especially kids. Seems that's the only tactic they know. It won't work. The Taliban was welcomed in the mid 90's as an alternative to the destruction caused by War lords. The Afghans have not forgotten their abuses. The Afghans are tired of their kids being killed! It's not going to matter what uniform a kid killer wears. We really don't want the Afghans to look back on US involvement as another example of "we thought it couldn't get worse but, guess what? It did!"

.02 I'm getting the urge to get back over there . . .

Generalization, hyperbole, and sarcasm are common tools of OpEd columnists like Kristof, O'Reilly, and the like, and - unfortunately - can often distract readers from the overall value of what they may be trying to say.

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In this, he admits that we can be successful and then advocates quitting because we can't be perfect.

I don't read it that way at all - he speaks of what has proven to be a generally (but not always) successful technique for implementing COIN and then tempers it with a warning of caution - not a dismissal or a suggestion to quit.

I take his opinion to be one of cautious optimism towards a complicated issue with numerous 'costs' to be considered and - in spite of our best efforts and a willingness to accept the burden of those 'costs' - cannot offer a firm 'guarantee' of success. As with most things, there are 'trade offs' which need to be made - are they worth it?

Personally, I believe they are - however, that's MOO and YMMV.

Richard's $.02 :munchin

US Drone Takes Out Al-Qa’ida Kingpin

Saw the title of the thread an thought you had posted this one...
Now, why do we have to get this info from the Australian Press?

The Australian
October 23, 2009
Pg. 9

US Drone Takes Out Al-Qa’ida Kingpin

By Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent

A TOP al-Qa’ida explosives expert has been killed by a suspected missile strike on a house in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, striking a major blow to the terrorist organisation and its contribution to the bloody militant insurgency.

Abu Ayyub al-Masri — an alQa’ida commander considered a ‘‘tier-one’’ US target — was reportedly killed late on Wednesday during an explosion that destroyed a house in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area.

Masri is understood to have been a member of the military committee of al-Qa’ida, the most important body within the organisation, whose 12 members direct all military strategies. He is the latest in a string of successful strikes on senior al-Qa’ida figures in the hostile and remote FATA region. The attacks are believed to have shattered the organisation’s capacity to stage further strikes on the West.

Early reports suggested the house in Spalaga, just 50km from the South Waziristan border, was targeted by a US unmanned aerial vehicle — or UAV — although Pakistani security officials later claimed the blast was an accidental detonation of an improvised explosive device during the manufacturing process.

However, analysts cast doubt on the Pakistani claims yesterday, suggesting they were an attempt to cover up US involvement to protect a fragile deal struck with local militant leader Hafiz Gul Bahadir.

Bahadir has reportedly agreed to remain neutral in the military assault against Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistan) strongholds in neighbouring South Waziristan in return for an assurance of no army interference in his stronghold.

International intelligence analysts Stratfor said that despite the obvious dangers involved in bomb manufacturing, ‘‘it would be odd for a militant as wellseasoned as al-Masri to make such a lethal mistake himself, or associate with an inexperienced bombmaker’’.

‘‘Due to the strategic importance of Bahadir’s neutrality and the precariousness of the understanding, Islamabad would have a clear interest in spinning the explanation of the explosion to make it look like an accident instead of a UAV strike carried out by an ally of Pakistan,’’ Stratfor said in a briefing.

The US is known to conduct unmanned aerial strikes on the area, which harbours Tehrik-eTaliban leadership, al-Qa’ida militants and Afghan Taliban forces.

A spokesman for the US embassy declined to comment on the explosion.

US and Pakistani officials were understood to be working to confirm the identity of the three suspected militants killed in the explosion, although gathering forensic evidence from the area would be near impossible given the security situation.

Some analysts initially suggested the Masri killed in the strike was the same Abu Ayyab al-Masri, also an Egyptian explosives expert, who assumed leadership of al-Qa’ida in Iraq after the death of the late commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June 2006.

Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna dismissed those claims. But he said the Masri killed in Pakistan this week represented a big win for the US in its campaign to pick off terror targets. ‘‘It’s a very significant military achievement because 90 per cent of all Taliban and al-Qa’ida attacks use IEDs,’’ Mr Gunaratna told The Australian yesterday.

Meanwhile, militants continued their attacks on the Pakistani capital yesterday, with two gunmen killing a high-ranking military official and his driver in a brazen daylight ambush.

‘‘Two people on a motorbike opened fire. They fired on a military vehicle; they killed a brigadier and a driver of the vehicle,’’ a senior army official said yesterday.

It was the second strike on Islamabad within 48 hours, after suicide bombers killed six people in an attack on Islamabad University on Tuesday.

I don't know where she got her information - I checked the Pakistani and Indian press sites - including Radio Pakistan and PTV - and could only find the following posted today at 11:22:00 -

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Rockets fired at Pak's Kohat town
India Today, October 23, 2009

Pakistan's Kohat town on Friday came under multiple rocket attacks, but there were no reports of casualties.

Five rockets were fired from an unknown location on the town located in the North West Frontier Province.

One house was reported to be partially damaged in the attack. The identity of the attackers was not known.

It might be interesting to see how this thing breaks out over the next 48 Hours. :confused:

Richard :munchin

I believe the drone strike on Al-Masri was posted two days ago on long war journal.
Here's the link
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archiv...mander_r_1.php.