OK, maybe someone can help explain this to me.

[Oldschool45B]

I know there are some here that know General McChrystal. We know he has a SF background. If he is familiar with the huge assets that SF brings to a war like this then why is he asking for more conventional troops in Afghanistan? SF has proven time and time again that our brand of war fighting works better in these wars. An element from 5th took over a huge portion of the country. Those friggin Guard guys (I say that with tongue in cheek being one of them there helping the Teams do their thing) from 19th and 20th did a great job too. The active component has been in time and time again doing the Lord's work. The UW way works and works really, REALLY well. Why in the hell does he want more conventional troops?

There are several recent events that clearly, painfully illustrate why conventional troops are not the way to go in a suedo-SF roll. We just had a company size firebase attacked. The bad guys got right up to the wire and opened up inside the compound, pinning down crews so they could not get to the exposed 120mm mortar positions (Basic Infantry fail here). Ohhhhh, but we killed 100 of them (supposedly) but we still lost 8 Americans. What the hell kind of peremeter did they have and who was on guard duty that an element that size could litterally get right up to the wire and shoot OVER it into the compound? They tried that crap at Lawara a few times and paid dearly for it. Had they actually used a human wave attack they very well may have over run that entire firebase. Then we would be out of there quicker than Clinton in Solalia and the country would be lost to the Taliban. Again.

So, I am a meer student of UW since I only support those who do the heavy lifting. But I really don't get why Commanders with an SF back ground are so eager to abandon UW and push for a bigger conventional foot print and all that comes with that. Like more dead Americans, more media, longer and bigger supply lines and nothing to show for it in the end. Hell, even some of our own have abandoned the SF way and would just rather drive around until they make contact and then drive back to the FB and hope CAS takes care of them. How does that win hearts and minds and turn the locals to our favor? Any half assed Infantry unit can do that. Our guys are so dis-heartened to see the State standing up some half assed ETT from pouges from the IG's office when we have guys that really WANT to go do this mission. How did conventional Army get the ETT mission anyway? That is an SF mission!

Where has SF lost it's way, and is moving away from what makes us so special and effective?

[LongWire]

Originally Posted by Oldschool45B

Then we would be out of there quicker than Clinton in Solalia and the country would be lost to the Taliban. Again.


Where has SF lost it's way, and is moving away from what makes us so special and effective?

Have we lost our way, I didn't know.....guess I'm lost too. I must be, because I have no clue Where The Fuck Solalia is!!!!!!!!!!

[The Reaper]

I think you need to do some more research on LTG McChrystal before you make so much of his SF background. He is not really an 18 guy, despite the Tab.

TR

[LongWire]

Or at least look at this discussion still being discussed...........


http://professionalsoldiers.com/foru...ad.php?t=25132

[Richard]

Oldschool45B Join Date: Jul 2005

Doesn't like to read much, does he.

Richard's $.02

[Oldschool45B]

Sorry, typed faster than my fingers could keep up. Of course I meant SOMALIA.

And I understand that he has more experience in another house than the SF side. I hoped he at least knew what an asset the SF side of the house could be. Guess not.

And yes, I missed the early bird thread, I try to say more in the weapons sections since that is my background. But thanks for the link, I will get caught up.

[QRQ 30]

I don't think SF wins wars. We aid in the winning of wars, primarily through our dealings with the ihdig. We prepare the groundwork and intelligence networks but unless things have changed, linkup with conventional forces is the final stage.

OTOH we are speaking of a long drawnout process, but I think a relentless pursuit of AQ ala that of Che is called for. IMO we actually made enemies of the Taliban.

I don't know what Mac Chrystal asked for other than 40K troops. IMHO publicity and fanfare nave usually been detrimental to our missions. Who knew we had advisors in Bolivia before Che lost his head? QPs are most effective at getting the job done.

[QRQ 30]

Originally Posted by LongWire

Have we lost our way, I didn't know.....guess I'm lost too. I must be, because I have no clue Where The Fuck Solalia is!!!!!!!!!!

That's OK. Last week I heard a major newscaster refer to Samoa as SAMOIA.

[LarryW]

I don't think SF wins wars. We aid in the winning of wars, primarily through our dealings with the ihdig. We prepare the groundwork and intelligence networks but unless things have changed, linkup with conventional forces is the final stage.

IMHO, we might do well to forget the short term engagements (< 10yrs) and remember something closer to a ROK type of committment; to remain with a viable force in country until such time as there is assurance that a Taliban/AQ type of culture doesn't re-emerge, or at least can be resisted by the government in power. That's going to take more conventional troops, probably more logisticians and engineers. Methinks the mission there is changing, or is in the process of being changed.

[LongWire]

Hmmm.........Looks pretty close to an answer to me.

Wall Street Journal
October 9, 2009
Pg. 19

No Substitute For Boots On The Ground

By Vincent G. Heintz

In 2008 I commanded a team of U.S. Army combat advisers in northern Afghanistan's remote Chahar Darreh district. We patrolled with about 50 Afghan police troopers, conducting ambushes, reconnaissance, law-enforcement tasks and reconstruction.

These missions had one purpose: to build trust between the police and the people and thereby isolate the insurgents moving among them. Some Afghan troopers were thieves and Taliban infiltrators. Most served with honor and courage.

A growing chorus of Americans rejects operations of this kind. Opposition has hardened in response to Gen. Stanley McChrystal's call to launch a fully resourced counterinsurgency effort.

Naturally, the peaceniks want us to leave Afghanistan altogether. Other opponents of the McChrystal plan urge President Barack Obama to select a safer, cheaper cleaner method of defeating al Qaeda. Some conservative isolationists, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, argue that we should rely on commando raids and missile strikes to zap terrorist targets from afar, thereby sparing infantrymen like us the risks that go with living among the Afghans. Tellingly, the Biden camp has yet to offer any details about the sources of real-time intelligence needed to execute precision strikes, or the locations of the bases from which they would be launched.

In the years prior to 9/11, our leaders gambled with the nation's safety by employing "surgical" cruise missiles attacks (that blew up only abandoned tents) and organizing specialized counterterrorism forces (that never deployed due to a poverty of intelligence). Nowadays, any talk of returning to this over-the-horizon concept is shockingly naïve.

There is also a claim that the McChrystal counterinsurgency plan amounts to a "nation building" program, doomed to fail in the Afghan badlands. But like other U.S. counterinsurgency forces that have operated in Afghanistan, our team did not dabble in grand-scale social experimentation. We simply helped Afghans establish security at the local level and set conditions for governance and reconstruction.

As our nine-month deployment unfolded, we witnessed progress precisely along these lines. In February we embedded with the Afghan troopers and encouraged them to operate proactively against the enemy. By the end of March, citizens were reporting roadside bomb locations and impending attacks to the district manager, who passed the information to the police chief. Our team and the police disrupted the attacks through some quiet foot patrols and a few visits to suspected insurgent ringleaders, during which they learned that if bad things happened they would be held responsible. These operations did not produce a Taliban body count, but the district center remained safe.

The Taliban delivered written threats directing the people to stop working with the police and the Americans. The locals provided these "night letters" to us, and we integrated them into our intelligence work. Taliban fighters machine-gunned and rocketed the police station. The cops repelled the assaults and remained on duty. People were coming down on the side of the police, and the enemy was losing the initiative.

Over the summer, we provided funds to resurface the district's main road, linking the muddy flood plain to the national highway system and the cement factories, flour mills, slaughterhouses, colleges and hospitals in Konduz City. We expanded the district's central school. People of every ethnicity enrolled their children (girls, as well as boys). A corrupt building inspector attempted to subvert the school project with a demand for bribes. The province police commander, a barrel-chested former communist, warned him to back off.

Did any of this protect America from al Qaeda? A fair question, and the answer is that trusted networks of Afghan citizens that we and the Afghan police developed—by bringing security, governance and reconstruction to the district—produced a stream of actionable intelligence that we supplied to other coalition units responsible for counterterrorism. The details remain classified.

Then, after seven months, progress stopped. As required, I reported to headquarters that the district's cops had achieved basic capacities in operations, administration and logistics. With that, my team was ordered to another district, leaving 56 still-green but technically "certified" Afghan troopers to face a ruthless enemy moving in a sea of 100,000 people.

Why was our team ordered to depart? First, as confirmed by a recent report from Department of Defense's inspector general, there were and remain insufficient numbers of U.S. combat advisers to provide continuous coverage in key districts. Second, combat advisers are directed to assess security forces according to a training model that fails to focus on the most fundamental metric of all—whether local forces have actually established enduring security.

The result in the district we patrolled is that security has collapsed. Schools have been vandalized. Taliban fighters and robbers prowl the roads. NATO-sponsored reconstruction projects now draw extortionists like blood draws sharks. The intelligence flow has dried up.

Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) has correctly identified the development of Afghan security forces as the key to securing Afghanistan. But his approach—favoring a surge of U.S. trainers rather than combatants—misses the mark.

Calling combat advisers trainers does not take them out of harm's way. In 2008, more than 35 combat advisers were killed in action across Afghanistan. If Mr. Levin's idea is to restrict trainers to the safety of U.S. military bases, then the effort will do little to develop Afghan forces and even less to establish security.

Cops and soldiers (Afghan or American) are not made in classrooms or on shooting ranges. It is in alleyways and markets and on open highways and farmlands where young troopers build trust in one another, receive on-the-job mentoring, and earn the confidence of the citizenry. That confidence is the decisive point of any counterinsurgency effort.

That is why it is in the field where Afghan soldiers and police need our forces most. As military historians Fred and Kimberly Kagan have observed—and as I saw in both Iraq and Afghanistan—the swiftest path to development and independence for local security forces is through joint operations based on habitual relationships between units.

Last month, in his recommendation to the president, Gen. McChrystal called for "rapidly expanded coalition force partnering at every level." This will permit operations that are fully resourced, planned and integrated, with embedded combat advisers serving as coaches, patrolling partners, honest brokers against corruption, and liaisons between the Afghans and affiliated NATO units. That is how a surge in combat forces will directly contribute to building Afghanistan's own security forces.

I saw little evidence that the sheer size of an American presence will cause Afghans to resent us as an occupying force. Failure to provide security is much more dangerous. One of our interpreters explained to us that the Afghan people like the coalition. "What people hate is that you won't stop the violence. They say, 'Why don't the Americans do something?'" I can only imagine the rage now harbored by the people of the flood plain, who were left to fend for themselves once their police were "certified."

If the president feels the need to accommodate his liberal base, then we must hope that he resists the temptation to do so mathematically by splitting the difference between the highest and lowest troop numbers that Gen. McChrystal might propose. That would be the equivalent of FDR ordering Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to assault Omaha Beach but not Utah.

Technology and elite special forces provide certain advantages in modern warfare. But to defeat an insurgency, there can be no substitute for boots on the ground. This fact forms the cornerstone of Gen. McChrystal's call for more troops. Hopefully the president is listening.

Mr. Heintz, a major in the New York Army National Guard reserve, served in 2001 at Ground Zero, in 2004 in Iraq, and in 2008 in Afghanistan. He is a member of Vets for Freedom.

[sdohm12]

I believe in the US mission in Afghanistan and Iraq. I believe that in order to succeed, however, we need to stress the importance of why we (The US/NATO) are fighting. We are fighting for stability and security. We are fighting to prevent attacks on US, BRITISH, EUROPEAN soil. The Afghan and Iraqi communities need to believe that the US/NATO presence in their communities is worth the risk. The question is, How do we (The US/NATO) show citizens in Iraq and Afghanistan that we need to be there? Security is paramount. I believe that nothing is in life is more important than feeling safe. Of course, not everyone feels "safe" all the time, life is inherently risky. But those who live in war zones where US/NATO troops are seen as the "cause" of suffering cannot be transformed to believe that our presence is beneficial. Don't get me wrong, not everyone believes that we are the cause of all evil. But if the majority feels that we are creating more harm than good (Suicide bombs are meant to create that impression) then we will lose ground in combating terrorism.

This is why I believe in the idea of maintaining boots on the ground (Afghan police/military/US/NATO boots). We must maintain a constant presence in and around the communities that breed hate and ill-will toward freedom. Without an unending eye on the situation on the ground, we will fail in holding what the US military has accomplished. This is why we ensure that systems are created to ensure strength and focus in those that we train. We ensure that Afghan and Iraqi citizens believe in what they are fighting for.

More to come...if appreciated

[alfromcolorado]

What we are doing in Afghanistan is a good thing. I think some of the policies are a bit misguided. Specifically the DOS perspective.

You cannot build a house from the roof down. Thinking that one can build a country starting in Kabul, especially in a country like Afghanistan is naive at best and god damn stupid at worst. Engagement at the local level, security at the local level, is what these people understand. Something along the model of the CIDG or CAP programs in Vietnam. Then help them with what they need. (This does NOT include girl's schools.) Like any house, Afghanistan needs to be built from the foundation UP. DOS has to quit thinking they can make little Americas out of places that DON'T WANT to be Americas.

We also need to get troops out of the mindset that if one is an Afghani they must be the enemy. Making insurgents is counter productive.

If we act like the enemy, smell like the enemy... Well, we are ducks.

If we work with them, fight with them and live with them... Take a stake in their security instead of heading back to the FOB, we might just screw this goat. They respect that.

Hopefully we haven't lost that ability in our "whack them all" crazed world.

I honestly don't believe that the people of Afghanistan want the Taliban to return to power. We should, LOCALLY, help them to think they are safe from the Taliban and that we sincerely respect them and their society and are there to help them. Locally, the SF way...

Not the idiotic DOS way.

[Razor]

Originally Posted by alfromcolorado

...we might just screw this goat. They respect that.

I agree with your thoughts, but I gotta tell you the above made me LOL.

[alfromcolorado]

Originally Posted by Razor

I agree with your thoughts, but I gotta tell you the above made me LOL.

Jus' tryin' ta be socially sensitive...

[mark46th]

Long Wire- We who wander are not all lost...