The situation in Afghanistan has gotten me pretty pissed off these days. I got off the phone a little while ago with the commander of a battalion of Marines — 2nd battalion, 7th Marine Regiment — who’s trying to hold back the waters of “Taliban” violence manning the ramparts of a 28,000 square kilometer area of operations … a swath the size of Vermont, he said.
Because of this lack of forces, Lt. Col. Richard Hall, the battalion CO, has lost by my count 13 Marines in the short time he’s been in Afghanistan. That’s getting close to the total number of Marines killed in Iraq this year. Hall’s been extended once already — and he’s praying for relief by November if Gates will free up some Marines from Anbar (Iraq) as the commandant reiterated his desire to do today at the Pentagon.
My fundamental question is how could we have let it get this bad? Hall said he’s got no coalition forces buffering his provinces (Helmand and Farah) to the north, so the enemy slips back and forth with impunity. He says the “Taliban” that are killing his men aren’t religious fanatics — they’re criminals who are pissed about the disruption of their smuggling routes.
A couple weeks ago, we talked to the deputy director for operations at Centcom, Brig. Gen. Robert Holmes. He said the enemy in Afghanistan has gotten “more organized” and in some cases stronger. Stronger!?
“Well, we’ve seen, fighting season after fighting season, the Taliban have become more organized. And their fighting, in terms of being in units, has become more organized, and in some cases stronger.”
How can that have been allowed to happen after more than six years in-country?
There’s no excuse. Other than the obvious, I guess. the USG put Afghanistan on the back burner to get Iraq squared away and now it’s turning back to the fight. Hall said his Marines are getting attacked in the “spaces in between the districts” — the no man’s land of rock and sand roads that connect the arid villages of his AO to one another. Hall said he doesn’t have enough men to “hold” the villages and that his original mandate was to train and mentor the Afghan army and police there.
“There are not enough forces here to completely control those districts, so there is going to be risks. And consequently, the casualties do come. … The way I’m task-organized right now, I as a infantry battalion don’t have the numbers of Marines that can effectively operate within all these different districts as well as influence the area in between those districts. And that is where we normally get hit by the enemy, is in between those districts that we don’t control.“
Ummm, didn’t we figure out that more troops were needed to “hold” Iraqi towns after the insurgents and AQ guys were kicked out? And somehow we didn’t know we need to do that in Afghanistan…?
And most of Hall’s casualties are from IEDs. Why? Because he can’t patrol enough to keep bad guys from building and emplacing them. The commandant said there’s about 40 MRAPs with Marines in Afghanistan. MRAPs aren’t going to defeat IEDs; counterinsurgency tactics will. And the risk of rollover and getting stuck on some dirt road in one of those “bank safes on wheels” makes it a heck of a juicy ambush target.
It’s not about tech, it’s about tactics and manpower. Let’s hope now that Petraeus is taking over Centcom he can have some influence over pushing more troops to Afghanistan to get this thing back in the bottle.
– Christian
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Where is Osama?
One of the major problems of this war against the Taliban is the possiblity of both Radical Islamists taking over Pakistan which will not only take one valued ally out of the GWOT fight,but also close that avenue of approach from the Indian Ocean to resupply & provide air cover for our forces in Afghanistan.
The next problem is Russia expanding in Georgia & the rest of the former Soviet states. Not only is she paying us back for Kosovo,but also for the help we gave the Afghan groups fighting her when she was the USSR fighting in Afghanistan. I really & honestly believe that Russia is about to cut off all access to Afghanistan for NATO forces. NATO,Israel,& the U.S. need to suck it up,eat humble pie & CONCEDE RUSSIAN CONTROL OVER GEORGIA & stop doing bulls**t stunts like sending naval ships into the Black Sea to resupply an unpopular leader that Georgian President “Sack of S**t” is. He’s the stupid idiot that got Georgia into the mess they are in,& he’ll sink NATO being able to help Afghanistan because he woke up the Bear. If Russia goes after the Ukraine,Moldova,& finally Poland next…..& NATO does absolutely nothing about it,then the war in Afghanistan is over & the Taliban won. I say that because Russia will be so emboldened that she’ll retake all of the old former Soviet Republics(maybe even Latvia,Lithuania,& Estonia) & drive the old Warsaw Pact East European nations back into her arms(excluding the former East Germany),NATO & European Union membership be damned.
The European NATO members need to “grow a pair” & stand up to Russian aggression,but I fear they won’t & the U.S. can’t do it alone.
I “boldly” predict that both NATO & the European Union will fail/fall/crumble/disintegrate & out of the ashes of both will rise the “‘ten toed’ nation” of the Western European Union(from which organization comes “Eurocorps”) made up of the United Kingdom,Netherlands,Belgium,Luxembourg,Germany,France,Portugal,Spain,Italy,& Greece. All of this will occur because of what I stated in my previous post.
“The European NATO members need to “grow a pair” & stand up to Russian aggression,but I fear they won’t & the U.S. can’t do it alone.”
Interesting.
The whole nub of the article, is that Unca Sam is reluctant to commit resources to AFG, Dubya is giving short measure on a mission with which he claims to have been charged by God Almighty. Prime Minister Brown is shorking responsibioities he and his predecessor took on in the name of the British people.
With 2 such beacons of integrity, intelligence and strategic wisdom (Ha!) heading up the alliance of NATO nations – it is hardly a surprise that other member states are dragging their feet.
Either the future of the region which encompasses what we call Afghanistan is of vital interest to the West, or it is not. If it is, we should all be doing more.
If it is not we shoulkd be doing nothing.
As it is we are doing next to nothing, but calling it ‘doing more’, and soldiers from both sides of the Atlantic are paying the blood price of a commitment with no end in sight.
Maybe if the majority of NATO nations weren’t SCARED to fight things would be going better over there.
Why does NATO even send troops over there that won’t fight? Keep them safe at home.
Perhaps in the meantime, as forces are freed up from Iraq, the new Reaper drones can patrol the skies of Afghanistan — with impunity.
They may not devastate the enemy, but they sure as hell will vaporize a couple dozen IED teams a day if they get up and running at full capacity.
Why did this thread jump directly to radical Islamists? Aren’t we the guys that complain that Washington and the Pentagon don’t listen to the group commanders? He says, ‘they’re criminals who are pissed about the disruption of their smuggling routes’.
And the reason they are pissed off is because it’s the only way they know how to make money. We don’t have any good projects over there teaching these people trades or best farming practices for real jobs, and then we attack the drug smuggling which is all they have left. I would be pissed too if someone took tried to take away the only way I could put food on the table.
My wife heads over there with the 276th Eng. in January and I can only hope things get better for her and her Soldiers.
I think the ‘allies’ have to take a large chunk of blame in this. Sure, if the US hadn’t messed around in Iraq and concentrated on Afganistan the war there would likely be at much lower intensity by now (but still happening).
Have to deal with the reality tho’, and europe talked the talk of Afg being the Good and Just war unlike what those nasty yanks were doing in iraq. And yet they aren’t willing to walk the walk. Britain has a pretty big fighting contingent, smaller nations like NZ do what they can with special forces and hearts and minds operations and there are many other contributors, but the big nato powers like France and Germany are token forces as far as fighting goes.
It may be better now I don’t know, but european Nato countries were even finding reasons why transport helicopters etc were urgently needed to sit in their home hangers rather than get all dusty on active duty.
Quite how afganistan will ever get a stable peace I don’t know. I doubt it’s possible. perhaps partition or a loose federal arrangement with perpetual boots on the ground from the UN.
But trying to fight on the cheap while spouting rhetoric about important Afg is ain’t a good look and costs lives. More troops transferred from Iraq, more troops from Nato Europe.
Frankly, Europe got tired of cleaning your mess. War is the last resort, USA uses it as only resort. That’s not smart. I don’t blame it on the average american Joe. I blame it on your politicians. What did Condolisa Rise ever actualy “do” as a foreign policy and diplomacy.
Not sure what you mean by ‘your’, I’m from NZ :)
I agree in general US politicians have got themselves and many others into avoidable messes. That’s an endless debate.
However my point was there are european countries who could do so much more in a war in which they proclaim to be in favour of. The have the physical, financial and manpower assets to do so. The lack of backup for the words is costing lives and stringing out the conflict. They are trying to have their cake and eat it to – be tough on the taliban/extremists, while leaving the actual cost to someone else. Not much moral superiority in this position from starting useless wars.
It’s easy for the US to knock European members of Nato. Likewise it’s pretty easy for us in the UK to do it too. But in the end there’s only one thing we can do. Learn from HISTORY. We are not going to ‘win’ in Afghanistan. Walk away. The Russians are hardly going to want to return there.
Forget GWOT, there needs to be global co-operation in combating the illegal drugs industry, but fighting the Taliban on their home turf, with inadequate forces isn’t the way forward, I’m sure.
Seriously,are the Taliban any worse than the “ally” Wahabbis running Saudi Arabia? If I understand correctly,the Taliban was quite willing to get rid of al Qaeda for us,but we decided to invade & overthrow them using the “CORRUPT” Northern Alliance. Even then,we used a token force of Special Forces & Bombers to assist the Northern Alliance & then we sent an inadequately armed token force to secure Tora Bora & allowed al Qaeda to escape into Pakistan. We used the “poor women” of Afghanistan as a reason to overthrow the Taliban & we could not seal the deal.”Good & Just” War,what a crock of s**t. Afghanistan is in far worse shape than Iraq is(excluding all of the propaganda about how the “Surge” is working,just like Vietnamazation worked in South Vietnam).
Roy etc,.
Google “Afghanistan warlords” and select the first entry under warlordsofafghanistan.com for an interesting condensed version of the key players, history, and culture of the area. Multiple small pages on the left side do a good job of explaining why warlords are the key, the Northern Alliance are not ALL the bad guys you think they are. Hekmatyar,Mullah Omar and others are bad. Others are just powerful and must be worked with the same way we work with Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq.
Terrain and distance make it hard for so few troops to cover large, mountainous, high altitude Afghanistan which hurts all but the most powerful helicopters which are essential for movement and resupply. When we turned over control of south Afghanistan to allies who lacked helicopters or the willingness to spend money to operate them, the problems began. Up until around 2006, many allies were in Kabul under the ISAF and largely immune to most risks. When they moved south and took on more combat missions, the Taliban sensed weakness and were emboldened…just as they were when they fought the Soviets. With our help they downed over 300 Soviet helicopters using Stingers and other fires. That and the Soviet outcome in that country should tell you how critical helicopters are in that country.
Other airpower is also essential but also a source of propaganda. The recent collateral damage disaster near Herat, is in a Tajik-dominated area with some Pashtuns who may have fed faulty or false intelligence to the U.S. to target a competing tribe. Ismael Khan is a famous Herat warlord who battled the Soviets and is an ally of Karzai…who no doubt protested to his partner about the airstrikes in his AO. But let’s put this in perspective. After the Tajiks near Herat killed 300 or so Russian advisors to start the Soviet Afghan excursion, the Soviets retaliated by killing some 20,000 in the vicinity of Herat. We need to remind Mr. Karzai of the difference between the accidental few casualties versus the purposeful cruelty of our predecessors….but we also need to more careful with airpower.
We need to understand who the good and bad warlords are, and focus on the Pashtuns who are some 40 million near the Afghan-Pakistan border. Considering that all of Afghanistan is only 20 something million with multiple ethnicities, you see our dilemmma when so many potential bad guys and powerbrokers are safe just across the border or entrenched in the political and cultural atmosphere of two countries.
Things could be done in the short term to alleviate this situation, but the long term solution is for the USA to spend a more realistic amount on defense.
Is the USA a superpower or isn’t it?
Like a lot of democratic countries America needs leaders who have guts and know what there are doing.
I know it could be a long wait.
I still say that as long as the marines of 2nd Battalion-7th Marine Regiment maintain their “groomin’ standards” they should be ok. Maybe they should have a moustache growing contest,that would help the situation in Afghanistan.
Cole,
You know that opium still has medicinal value.If we would negotiate with opium buyers a “fair” price for their crops,we could buy it up & maybe help to put a legitimate dent in the illegal drug market. The mismanaged opium eradication is as much a problem in Afghanistan as the “Taliban” problem. We tried basically to eliminate the livelihood of Afghans without a legitimate replacement. Afghanistan has had a “bandit” problem since the times of Alexander the Great. At least the Taliban seemed to have a handle on it better than we do now(by we,I’m also including the European NATO nations). The “only” reason we demonised the Taliban was because of how they treated their women. They treat their women no worse than the Saudis,a valuable “ally”,do. In fact,the Saudis are as misogynistic as the Taliban,but George W. Bush literally holds hands with the Saudi ruler. Like it or not,we need to work with the Taliban in Afghanistan & the Deobandis in Pakistan or they’ll both fall into the arms of the Russians(the Russians are not the Soviets). China & the rest of the Central European Nations who are members of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation are already giving approval & support to Russia for her actions in Georgia,so Russia already has the allies she needs to keep her from being isolated. China will also back Russia up in the Security Council if the UN tried to sanction her.That’s two vetoes.
The noose is tightening around Afghanistan & we are shooting ourselves in the foot because of our opium eradication & Taliban policies.
I just spent most of my lunch hour reading recent Afghanistan articles in the press around the world. Found this gem from Denmark, EuropeNews, that says a lot about the complexities that Pres Karzai faces in holding his central government together with a hodgepodge of ethnicities and former warlords he must please…or at least avoid pissing off too much:
“Most of Afghanistan experts assert that Afghanistan is ruled by a motley alliance of former warlords, former Mujahedeens, old communists, and royalists. Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, called the great
Oh yeah,I forgot to mention the “unforgivable” act that the Taliban committed when they blew up those statues of Buddha. The beasts,no wonder they had to be driven from power.
Roy, just read your post and one thing I read in both Christian’s links and in the news reports is that many of those killed in Bajour by Pakistani forces were foreign fighters from Chechnia, Uzbekistan, etc. That is not Taliban…it is al Qaeda leaving one theater for another. That could also explain the relative effectiveness and greater massing/technical skill in using IEDs most recently.
You’d probably need Vietnam War/Desert Storm peak level number of troops in Afghanistan to secure it. The Soviet Union never really had sufficient number of troops in Afghanistan,they had about as much troops as we have in Iraq right now during the surge.
Dreaming of having a half-million troops in Afghanistan is an impossible dream because NATO combined could not raise that level. However,that is the only way to maintain the status quo in Afghanistan & not lose any more ground to the Taliban. You’d also have to force open a “supply pipeline” to sustain that number of troops that the Russians or the Pakistanis could not be able to close. Good luck with THAT.
Cole,
I believe that we are about to see a coalition form around Russia that will defy common sense & conventional wisdom. The idea of “the enemy of my enemy” is about to be turned on its head. when you see Muslims unite with what has to be the most “anti-muslim & unfriendliest towards Muslims” nations that both Russia & China are,well what can you say?
Does anyone know what the dollar value of the opium crop is? Roy had a good idea (gasp) about simply subsidizing it and either using it for pharmacuticals or setting fire to it until we can figure out a better method of getting them to switch industries.
Roy had a good idea (gasp) about simply subsidizing it
Problem is drug users will always be able to outbid government. Unless production shifts elsewhere to Golden Triangle or Columbia.
Maybe Osama has gone back to the holiday region of his youth. A foresty area accessable by boat in Scandinavia? I think if he was somewhere else some extremist would have lost their temper and given him up for the reward money. Maybe Osama has gone to a no.1 shave or gone blond but unless he has an opium habit and overdosed he is definately the world`s best hide and seek player!
1) Petraeus is going to have to choose between keeping people in Iraq or reinforcing the people in Afghanistan. Gen. Conway asked for his people to be sent to Afghanistan instead of Iraq this past week.
2) When criminals can destabilize a government, there’s not much difference between them & an insurgency. Look at what’s going on in Mexico.
3) There’s reports that China will NOT back the Russians in the Georgia situation because they do not want to support secessionist movements (S. Ossetia, Abkhazia)in general.
Yes, the Europeans are not helping much, and Iam talking about Italy, Spain, and finally, Germany. Germany is a nation with a strong economy, great social programs, and a sizable moslem pop. However, they spend only 1.5% of thier GDP on defense, and thier leaders lack the will to send thier troops into the fight, handcuffing them with ridiculous caveats and ROE’s. The German military, while being well equipped, is below average. NATO is a paper tiger, our enemies know this, and I include Russia in that category. The UK, Canada, the Dutch are doing thier part and more. There are French troops there, but more are needed, if we are to keep supply routes open, and block intrusion from militants. The US better re-access thier role in NATO, coz half the alliance is a DISGRACE.
Inquiring minds would like to know, ELP.
And Christian — you make this all sound as though the failure of this administration and most Republicans surprises you.
I’ve learned to never get mad over GOvernmental
slackness or decissions…Since they are the ones
who fail every time….Therefore don’t vote…
we need to demand help from our so called allies and get help to stop the sale of weapons, drugs ,human trafficing being sent in to the states that support the war .weneed to start at the schools and tell parent s that we are at war and at war some things need to be done and done right and bring the terrorest to just us