I saw some of these guys. We pissed away valuable talent when we disbanded them. How many went to the heroin cartels?

“MAKING RIFLEMEN FROM MUD”: RESTORING THE ARMY’S CULTURE OF IRREGULAR WARFARE by Lieutenant Colonel James D. Campbell Ph.D. United States Army

During the winter and spring of 2006, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan (CJSOTF-A) went through a laborious process to demobilize its Afghan surrogate force, called the Afghan Security Forces (ASF). This process involved the largest formal demobilization of U.S. surrogate or irregular forces since 1945.95 The ASF were composed of a variety of tribal or local militias, anti-Taliban volunteers and Afghan mercenaries. Many of them had been working with the Special Forces since 2001, as they were originally members of the Northern Alliance, the coalition of Afghans which overthrew the Taliban with U.S. help. The ASF provided local security to Special Forces firebases and camps throughout Afghanistan, and prior to 2006, were also used extensively to assist Special Forces units in convoy security and small-scale combat operations.96

The ASF also provided a deeply important component to U.S. counterinsurgency operations, one which experienced American soldiers have valued and seen as central to success in many campaigns. From the Pequot War in 1637, to the Seminole Wars in the early nineteenth century, the Apache campaigns after the Civil War, and in twentieth century small wars from the Philippines to Vietnam, this component is one of the main reasons American soldiers have always sought out cooperation with local irregular forces. This critical component is human intelligence; the local knowledge of geography, culture, language and personality that any outsider cannot ever hope to have without such cooperation with local forces - this was the very asset provided by the Seminole, Apache, Macabebe Scouts and others that has been lauded by so many soldiers in our past. The ASF were an invaluable resource for local intelligence, one that even the Afghan National Army or police could not provide, since they were nationally recruited forces without the local or sometimes even provincial connections possessed by the ASF.97

Given their importance, military value and proven record of success, why were the ASF demobilized? There are a complex set of answers to this question, many dealing directly with concerns held by the Afghan government and coalition command about non-government militias, sovereignty and legitimacy. Those officers who were involved in planning and carrying out the demobilization understood that there was also another important reason, one which was perhaps not so clearly articulated. It was an enduring discomfort with the existence and military use by the coalition of irregular forces.98 Questions of loyalty, brutality, cost and effectiveness all played a role in this distaste, much as they have throughout our history of cooperation with and employment of irregulars. Many of the concerns felt within the Army and elsewhere about cooperation with these irregulars had not changed since the operations at Tora Bora and Shalikot in 2002.99 In spite of these questions the fact remains, however, that these irregular soldiers contributed enormously to the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan. Saying nothing of the fact that in many instances they were the ones who had fought against and overthrown the Taliban, often since then their contribution was the crucial factor deciding between the success or failure of an operation.

96

From December 2005 to May 2006, the author was the CJSOTF-A project officer responsible for planning and carrying out the bulk of this demobilization.

97

The Afghan National Army and Police are centrally trained, centrally controlled, and their units are deliberately kept ethnically and regionally mixed.

98

In the Army’s new counterinsurgency manual, FM 3-4, the words “Irregular Warfare” are mentioned only twice, in the Introduction. “Unconventional Warfare” is not mentioned at all – a glaring omission, pointing out this reluctance and the lack of doctrinal emphasis on this deeply important aspect of current operations. The fact that the only joint, Department of Defense-level publication that explicitly deals with irregular operations was only published in draft form in December, 2006, is another indication that the military as an institution is still far from any kind of comfort with this type of mission (Department of Defense, Irregular Warfare Joint Operating Concept (JOC), Pre-Decision Draft Version 0.5, December 2006.).

99

See Sean Naylor, Not a Good Day to Die; The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Penguin Group (USA), 2005). Naylor discusses in this book some of the problems of effectiveness and loyalty evident in the performance of Afghan auxiliaries during the early period of fighting in Afghanistan. See also Charles Briscoe, Richard L. Kiper, James A. Schroder, and Kalev I. Sepp, Weapon of Choice; ARSOF in Afghanistan (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Army Center for Military History, 2005), for an exhaustive account of Army Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan from 2001-2002.

From early 2006, The waiting game By Sean D. Naylor

The best-paid, best-trained, best-equipped and most highly motivated Afghan troops fighting the Taliban are to be found in neither the ANA nor the ANP. They go by the name of the Afghan Security Forces, or ASF, and they work exclusively for, and are paid by, the Special Forces A-teams.

The organizational descendents of the militia forces hired by the Central Intelligence Agency and trained by SF troops in late 2001 and early 2002, the ASF function as the security force for the A-teams at their firebases and on some combat missions. Bolduc said that he was not permitted to reveal the exact number of ASF men employed by TF 31, but he is authorized to contract for up to 100 per firebase. At one firebase visited by Army Times, there were between 40 and 50 ASF fighters and an equal number of ANA soldiers.

But the ASF troops are better paid than the ANA troops they fight beside when on missions with the A-teams. The average ASF fighter makes between $125 and $150 per month, whereas a junior enlisted ANA soldier makes between $62 and $70 per month, plus $2 extra for every day he is deployed away from his home base. Because ASF troops are essentially U.S. military employees, they don’t have to share the worries of their ANP counterparts about their pay being skimmed off at each level of bureaucracy.

And unlike the ANA forces at each firebase, who hail from all over Afghanistan, many ASF troops are locally recruited and therefore have a better feel for the region’s people and geography.

But because the ASF represent the most lucrative option for any adventurous young Afghan man looking to earn a living with an assault rifle, the force is a drag on recruitment for the Afghan government’s principal security forces: the ANA and the ANP, as well as the smaller highway police and border police forces. For that reason, plans are in place to demobilize the ASF in 2006, giving each ASF fighter a parachute payment and the option of joining one of the Afghan government security forces. Ninety percent of the ASF are projected to take up that option, Bolduc said.

We’re trying to build a modern, Western-style, ethnically balanced Army and National Police loyal to Kabul, and Kabul is supposed to be the capital city of the newly-empowered Westphalian nation-state that monopolizes the legitimate use of force, so friendly Pashtun Irregulars, tribal levies, militias, lashkars, Kit Carson Scouts and MIKE Forces are out of the question.

Just the kind of guys we need for cross-border ops.

I support whatever the hell we’re calling the war these days.  I support the troops.  I support the mission.  I served on active duty in my youth and I’ve actually been to Afghanistan.  I respect and admire and envy our Police Mentoring Teams. 

BUT

I respectfully disagree with COL McMahon.

We just added the responsibility for developing –
really building from scratch a police force about a year and a half ago.

If by “we” the good Colonel means ARSIC, that’s likely true, but building an Afghan Police Force should have been a fundamental element of Internal Defense and Development since November 13, 2001. Somebody screwed that pooch. My perception has been managed to blame Kamerad, but anybody who really thought he was up to the job overestimated his abilities and enthusiasm for the task.

We are also procuring for them and will train them on the up- armored
humvees. Actually, the state of the art of what we have is what we’ll field to
them.

The more we try to make them clones of American motorized infantry the wronger we are. Bernard Fall warned us about road-bound, over-motorized, hard-to-supply battle forces. Unarmored pickup trucks are what they can keep running. The more M1114’s and MRAP’s we bestow upon them the more dependent they are on Pakistani POL and the American military-industrial complex.

But real good story on the army. Let me turn to the police, because
they’re quite a bit farther behind at every level, from the ministry of interior
level all the way down to the police in the districts. The police have never
been very strong in Afghanistan. They’ve certainly been second fiddle to the
warlords’ armies. And in fact, the police force that exists right now is a
vestige of the warlord armies. The warlords, when they threw the Soviets out,
essentially occupied the area, had their militia, which they called the army,
and we’ve pretty much gotten rid of, and then they put other people into the
police. We have not gotten rid of that yet, and we’re working very hard to fix
that now.

So you have a police force that is very much local, and it’s also very
much tied to the power brokers in the local areas and subject to their whims,
not to the whims of the people or to the national government. Those are the
things that we’re trying to fix right now. There’s corruption, there is — it’s
just not a good story right now.

We’re working on really two levels to try to fix this. First level is
to try to reform the Ministry of Interior headquarters. It’s still designed
essentially in the Soviet style, a very, very centralized control, which doesn’t
work in a society where there is no centralized control. This is very much a
decentralized society, so they’ve got exactly the wrong organization.
It’s also been accused, in some cases rightfully so, of being extremely
corrupt itself. And in fact, some people have said they don’t want a good
police department because that will mess up their ability to accept graft and
that kind of thing.

So we’re working to reorganize and then — and fix the headquarters so
that they can be an effective management headquarters for a national police
force.

Then we’re also working at the low level, the grassroots level of the
police to reform them. The problem with the low-level policemen is exactly what
I mentioned earlier, that they are the vestige of the warlord society. So they
believe their allegiance is to whoever hired them, which includes going out and
collecting illegal taxes if that person tells them to out and collect illegal
taxes, which includes going into another district and bothering another tribe if
that’s what that boss tells them to do.

So those are the things that we’re dealing with, in addition to an
incredibly low literacy rate among them, which makes it harder for them to
really understand what they’re supposed to do. So we’re executing a program
called focused district development, which works at the district level, takes a
district at a time, totally revamps them, recruits new people, new policemen –
ideally nationally, we’re working on that as we speak — getting new leaders for
them, giving them new equipment, sending them all together to a training center
where they go through eight weeks of basic training and some advanced training
on policing techniques, then put them into their district and have a police
mentor team of coalition policemen and military folks as well to stay with them
and bring them up to speed and then make sure they continue to stay on the good
side.

We also are building a special police force called the Afghan National
Civil Order Police. We call them ANCOPs. The ANCOPs receive 16 weeks of
training, so they’re much better trained than the average policeman. They’re
all volunteers. They get paid a little bit more by virtue of being higher rank
than the average policemen and they have better equipment than the average
policemen. So those — we’re about — we built about 10 battalions of ANCOP and
extremely rave reviews so far of how they do out in the field.

Because they’re so good, we’re using them in conjunction with the
focused district development program by putting them into the districts while
the police are pulled out. So a couple weeks before you would send the new
district police to the training center, these ANCOP unit — an ANCOP unit goes
in, they establish what right policing is. And then eight weeks later when the
district police come back in, the people now have an expectation of what police
are supposed to do. Again, very, very good reviews on how ANCOP is doing and
how it’s setting the stage for the police to come back in.

We’re in the third cycle of the focused district development, so it’s
still early to guarantee that it’s the right way, but so far all indications are
that it is exactly the way to reform the police here. And we’re definitely going
to continue it.

There are 365 districts. And we are on number 23 now, so this has a
long way to go. But it’s going to take a very deliberate program to fix the
police here, by far the major problem.

23 down. 342 districts to go. I’m sorry, sir, but the clock will run out at this rate. If America and NATO is going to force Western-style notions of law, justice, good government and Westphalian nation-state monopolies on the legitimate use of force on people who have never bought-in to such concepts, they are going to have to quit asking and start telling.

How a Westphalian nation-state polices itself is a reflection of its dominant culture, history, traditions, and mores. Afghanistan has never really been a functioning Westphalian nation-state. We seem to be arrogant enough to try to turn them into one but not arrogant enough to impose a colonial administation and ex-pat officered constabulary upon them. The will to colonize Afghanistan and impose good government upon them isn’t there and likely never will be.

My gripes are all above COL McMahon’s echelon to resolve, and my beef is not with him personally. He is the strategic communicator designated to give me warm and fuzzies, which, supportive as I am, I’m not getting. This is due to deficiencies in the product that salesmanship can’t fix.

The way I see it,

Karzai has outlived his usefulness.

All the caveated contingents need to man up or leave, they’re a drain on the supply system.

The Taliban in Afghanistan is 95% ethnic Pashtun. Their auxiliaries and supporters and aiders and abettors are Pashtuns. Pashtun Irregulars, in many cases turned Taliban or former war lord types, are going to be more valuable in defeating the Taliban than politically correct, multicultural, ethnically
balanced MRAP-mounted motorized infantry.

Start a real Chieu Hoi program, to replace the half-vast PTS.

Pashto-fluent Human Terrain Teams are more important than PMT’s/ETT’s, who should have a higher priority than trigger-pullers.

Only so much sinews of war can come up from Karachi through Chaman and Torkham. Fewer non-indig trigger-pullers, more non-indig trainers and mentors.

Not much is going to change until after regimes change in Washington and Kabul.

More on the ANP:

Seconded to the Afghan Constabulary
“We don’t need to make these cops as good as the 82nd Airborne,”
The police in Shahjoy no longer resemble a “posse,”
No Sons of Afghanistan Need Apply
Maintiens le Droit
Abdul Hakim Jan — Cop, Alokozai Arbakai, Militia Chief
Focus District Development
CLC’s Good, Arbakai Bad
The Law in RC West
In a counterinsurgency environment the best force to use is generally taken to be indigenous security force
The Law West of the Hindu Kush

 

Despicable.  The reason the Code Pinkos and their fellow travelers put old, ugly, fat, ditzy hippy chicks out front is because honorable men won’t beat the shit out of them.  Kind of like setting up mortars in school yards to deter counterbattery.

Anti-war wounds,  via Sarah, by way of Mrs. G.

 

“Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other. Nor is there any real way of remaining outside such a war as the present one. In practice, ‘he that is not with me is against me.’”
  —  George Orwell

The Cold Civil War in America is another Campaign of World War IV.  Hier ist Der Schwerpunkt.

Whatever the hell we’re calling the Third Great Counter-Jihad these days, Israel is an ally of ours in it, and their particular piece of it is a campaign of the same conflict being waged in Iraq, Afghanistan, Philippines, Horn of Africa, Algeria, Chechnya, Pakistan, Kashmir, and India. The Tactics, Techniques and Procedures common to one geographical campaign tend to be shared. Variations of whatever works on Israelis usually gets tried on Americans.

Read Israel’s War On Despair for a great illustration of a Morale Operation.  Israel is not America, but we have much in common, like

an intelligentsia that is no longer confident of the nation’s right to its own . . . identity.

and

revisionist historians have told corrosive lies about their country’s history, portraying it as having been born in sin.

Read the whole thing.

Al Qaeda 2.0

Internet A Growing Threat From Terrorists, Report Says

A Senate homeland security committee report set for release Thursday  details a growing threat from terrorists’ use of the Internet as a recruiting and training tool. The report concludes that the U.S. government should consider its own outreach program as a counter to the Web strategies of groups such as Al Qaeda.

The US government is so far behind the power curve in countering enemy Web strategies the best thing they could do would be to stay out of the Irregulars’ way. The “Loyal Opposition” in our government won’t allow any counter-ideology because their base shares many tenets in common.

UPDATE:  Congressional Report: Terrorist Groups Have Upper Hand On The Internet, Urges Greater U.S. Response

Chairman Lieberman in his report said the terrorist groups like al-Qaida have the upper hand as far as spreading its messages through the internet goes and highlighted the need for the United States to develop a counter-propaganda communications plan to counter the radical Islamic messages.

The politically correct, multicultural, environmentalist whacko transnational progressives who kicked Lieberman out of their party don’t want counter-propaganda. Too many themes in common.

 

Strategic Collapse in the War on Terror

Clausewitz noted that in war the moral factors are perhaps the most important, and we have just demonstrated we neither have the moral clarity or moral fortitude to comprehend the nature of the war we are in.

War is a complex endeavor, there are no silver-bullet weapons, theories, words or phrases that will disarm our enemies or shape the cultural attitudes of the jihadists or other fellow Muslims. Only how the Islamic world doctrinally perceives and receives the claims of legitimacy of al-Qaida and the rest of the global Islamic movement will determine that outcome — not any mincing of words by the West.

But it is important that we use the right words so that the West and the American people can understand the nature of our global challenge in this war as much as anyone else.

The .gov types muzzled by the Guide for Counterterrorism Communication weren’t doing much for the domestic TA anyway, and probably won’t be missed.

From MSM giant Gannett’s Q-ship Navy Times  a USA Today piece: New DoD Web sites counter enemy rhetoric. Listen to the the oxen loudly protest being gored.

“This is about trying to control the message, either by bypassing the media or putting your version of the message out before others (and) … there’s a heavy responsibility to let people know where you’re coming from,” said Amy Mitchell, deputy director at the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Excellence?

The Web sites suggest a pattern of Pentagon efforts to promote its agenda by disseminating information through what appear to be independent outlets, said Marvin Kalb, a fellow at Harvard University’s Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

“This is deliberate deception, and it’s bad … (because) it weakens the image of journalism as an objective bystander,” Kalb said, noting that many of the Pentagon’s intended audiences live in a world where they expect the government to control their news. “We’re the exception, and unfortunately, we begin to look more and more like the rest of the world when we do this sort of thing.”

The illusion of journalism as an objective bystander was debunked for a lot of people in February, 1968 and never bought in to at all by many. Watergate confirmed the suspicion. The MSM was in the tank for the North Vietnamese, the Nixon-haters, the Reagan-haters, the Bush-haters.  They want to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable, but in their eyes the comfortable are always from one political party. 

Relentless, destructive critique of MSM persons and publications is among the most important tasks of bloggers, commenters, and tipsters of the Amriki tribe. 

Sounds like the ‘Trans-Regional Web Initiative’ is up and running.

This idea returned to my forebrain while I was reading Linchpin in Afghan security: a better police force:

If we ever want to get out of Afghanistan we need to step up the pace on getting the ANA and the ANP ready for prime time.  The ANA is coming along slowly, with the ANP three to five years behind them. How do we expedite making a credible national police force out of the ANP?

Maybe some neo-colonial free enterprise, combining best practices of a century ago with the flexibility and client-contractor dynamic of the Private Military Company.

Unless you’re a military history aficionado you probably don’t know about the Philippine Constabulary.  That would be a pretty good template for long-term expat leadership after NATO/ISAF and much of OEF declares victory and leaves.  U. S. Department of Justice ought to get into the war.  DOJ, not DOD, should contract with somebody like Dyncorp to provide contractor cadre for the ANP.  Not PMT’s but actual Deputy District Chiefs and such, with real command authority, on four- or five-year contracts at damn good pay.  They would be the men charged with extending the writ of Kabul to corners of Afghanistan where that writ has never run before.  They would be the men who would reduce the corruption to an acceptable standard for that part of the world.  Let the contractor hire cops and soldiers from all over the Free World, subject to screening, and give interested U. S. service members leave without pay to take these jobs.

Karzai would bitch.  Democrats would bitch louder.  That’s a feature, not a bug.

 

 

The “Loyal Opposition” and the BDS-sufferers have never recovered.

Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.

[Hold.  See below -- #4]

In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment — yet, it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage, your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other, made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free. (Applause.)

[Check]

Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision and speed and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces.

[Check]

This nation thanks all the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country. And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary Rumsfeld, for General Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done. (Applause.)

[Hold.  Not all of America]

The character of our military through history — the daring of Normandy, the fierce courage of Iwo Jima, the decency and idealism that turned enemies into allies — is fully present in this generation. When Iraqi civilians looked into the faces of our servicemen and women, they saw strength and kindness and goodwill. When I look at the members of the United States military, I see the best of our country, and I’m honored to be your Commander-in-Chief. (Applause.)

[Check]

In the images of falling statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. For a hundred of years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Allied forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation.

  [Check]

Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war; yet it is a great moral advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent. (Applause.)

  [Hold.  How "innocent" were the innocent?  To what extent can the Iraqi people be held responsible for their failure to overthrow Saddam themselves?  We killed hundreds of thousands of Germans and Japanese civilians for their complicity in allowing criminal regimes to run their countries.  How froggy would the Fedayeen Saddam and Former Regime Loyalists have been if the surviving Iraqis had been so traumatized by us that continued resistance was no longer tolerable to them?  Sparing Iraqi civilians probably did facilitate the eventual creation of a capable client-state in the heart of the Middle East, but it was contrary to Jacksonian principles of war and cost us blood we didn't have the stomach to spill in a cause the value of which we were not convinced.]

In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food and water and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices; and everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear. (Applause.)

[Hold.  Islam cannot abide liberty]

We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We’ve begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We’re helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. (Applause.)

[Check]

The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq. (Applause.)

[Hold.  Not enough Americans believe it is worth the effort.] 

The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 — and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men — the shock troops of a hateful ideology — gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the “beginning of the end of America.” By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation’s resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed. (Applause.)

  [Check]

In the battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals, and educate all of their children. Yet we also have dangerous work to complete. As I speak, a Special Operations task force, led by the 82nd Airborne, is on the trail of the terrorists and those who seek to undermine the free government of Afghanistan. America and our coalition will finish what we have begun. (Applause.)

  [Hold.  We did destroy the Taliban.  It didn't stay destroyed.] 

From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down al Qaeda killers. Nineteen months ago, I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight, nearly one-half of al Qaeda’s senior operatives have been captured or killed. (Applause.)

[Check.  One-half of the HVT's known at that time.] 

The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We’ve removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. (Applause.)

[Check. They'll get 'em from the Syrian, Iranian or North Korean regimes.]

In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th — the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got. (Applause.)

[Check, although disproportionate response would have been more emotionally satisfying to Jacksonians, and would probably have attained our objectives quicker, at less cost to us and greater cost to them.  But we wanted to make allies of them, not tributaries.]

Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all: Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice. (Applause.)

[Hold.  Justice is for criminals.  Destruction is for enemies.]

Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.

[Hold.  Sounded good at the time, but persons and organizations in the United States haven't been held to this.  The "Loyal Opposition" protects them.]

Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction is a grave danger to the civilized world — and will be confronted. (Applause.)

  [Check.  Confronted, probably.  Broken of bad habits?  Qaddafi was.  Not the rest.]

And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and sacrifices for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States of America. (Applause.)

[Check]

Our commitment to liberty is America’s tradition — declared at our founding; affirmed in Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms; asserted in the Truman Doctrine and in Ronald Reagan’s challenge to an evil empire. We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in a peaceful Palestine. The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal of terror in the world. Where freedom takes hold, hatred gives way to hope. When freedom takes hold, men and women turn to the peaceful pursuit of a better life. American values and American interests lead in the same direction: We stand for human liberty. (Applause.)

[Check.  Sounded good then.  Still sounds good, even though we've seen "free elections" that turned out badly]

The United States upholds these principles of security and freedom in many ways — with all the tools of diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, and finance. We’re working with a broad coalition of nations that understand the threat and our shared responsibility to meet it. The use of force has been — and remains — our last resort. Yet all can know, friend and foe alike, that our nation has a mission: We will answer threats to our security, and we will defend the peace. (Applause.)

[Check]

Our mission continues. Al Qaeda is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons remains a serious danger. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we. Our government has taken unprecedented measures to defend the homeland. And we will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike. (Applause.)

[Check]

The war on terror is not over; yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory. (Applause.)

[Hold.  Our resolve has been weakened.  We won't know how badly until November.]

Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home. And that is your direction tonight. (Applause.) After service in the Afghan — and Iraqi theaters of war — after 100,000 miles, on the longest carrier deployment in recent history, you are homeward bound. (Applause.) Some of you will see new family members for the first time — 150 babies were born while their fathers were on the Lincoln. Your families are proud of you, and your nation will welcome you. (Applause.)

[Check]

We are mindful, as well, that some good men and women are not making the journey home. One of those who fell, Corporal Jason Mileo, spoke to his parents five days before his death. Jason’s father said, “He called us from the center of Baghdad, not to brag, but to tell us he loved us. Our son was a soldier.”

[Check]

Every name, every life is a loss to our military, to our nation, and to the loved ones who grieve. There’s no homecoming for these families. Yet we pray, in God’s time, their reunion will come.

[Check]

Those we lost were last seen on duty. Their final act on this Earth was to fight a great evil and bring liberty to others. All of you — all in this generation of our military — have taken up the highest calling of history. You’re defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope — a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, “To the captives, ‘come out,’ — and to those in darkness, ‘be free.’”

[Check]

Thank you for serving our country and our cause. May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America.

  [Check]

The sticking point seems to be the definition of “major”, and the unpalatable truth that the thousands KIA since, so precious and irreplaceable in a nation of 300 million that bred only 5 million capable of meeting the standards required of our defenders, beloved of their families and canonized by American Exceptionalists, were lost in comparatively “minor” actions.  Taking Baghdad in the spring of 2003 was a major operation by any standard.  Operations in Iraq since then have rarely risen to a level that would be objectively considered historically “major.”  Fallujah II, perhaps.  There are over 500 known named operations listed under Operation Iraqi Freedom.  Were they all “major”?  Probably everybody who lost body parts in them thinks so.  Probably everybody who lost a family member in them thinks so.  Probably everybody who lost a buddy in them thinks so. 

But that’s not how historians rate the strategic significance of this or that battle, operation, skirmish, ambush, or action.  The mindless chant of “Bush Lied, People Died” is indicative of a mentality so bereft of any significant knowledge of military history as to be rendered incapable of good judgement on such matters.
 

Amid all the hoopla,  outrage,  paranoia, fear, uncertainty and doubt expressed over the influence operation pulled off before and early in OIF are occassional nuggets of PSYOP goodness like this:

From PSYOP to MindWar: The Psychology of Victory by Colonel Paul E. Vallely, 1980.

Yeah. That Paul Vallely. And I mean that in a good way.

 UPDATE:  Paul Vallely sees a high-profile New York Times story on military talking heads as a hatchet job.

“The American people will understand it’s bullshit. It’s bullshit coming out of the Times,” Vallely said. “Nobody ever directed what we said.”

“I’m not happy with the Defense Department backing down because of the newspapers, especially the New York Times,” Vallely said. “I think it makes it look weak.”

And Vallely is the host of a talk radio show called “Stand up America,” which is broadcast on the Internet. Some of his columns have appeared as guest opinions in The Daily Inter Lake.

“Everyone told it like it was except Wes Clark, who had a political agenda,” Vallely said.

Had Karzai’s parade gone according to plan there would be no images of Sunday’s National Day ceremony now appearing on any of the international channels or newspapers. A burst of small arms fire and a few mortar bombs transformed it into a much more sensational event for the press who with steadfast incomprehension have filed exactly the images and moments that the Taliban’s own propaganda manager would have chosen himself. By doing so they boost up a global interest in the particular aspects of its disgrace, the sense of pantomime, the rout of be-medalled parade soldiers scampering across the parade square before the Taliban fire and worst of all rows of dignitaries diving for cover behind their seats on the flag decked parade stand. Thanks to the media all that remains of this tragic day are these relentlessly unforgiving and unqualified images.

The incident on Sunday demonstrates a classic propaganda of the deed partnership in which the insurgents with growing skill select a media-significant target and with witless incomprehension international reporters beam the most sensationally damning images of the event around the world so as to deliver the worst possible interpretation. There is no need for a Taliban subtext or even a photo caption, the images speak powerfully for themselves sending messages of a stricken regime put to flight in their gilded uniforms by the daring fighters of the Taliban.

The Taliban’s Propaganda of the Deed Strategy

But the press is not the enemy and it is self-defeating to treat them as such, so all you good little PA types go ahead and piss all over yourselves in your enthusiam to suck up to the press while Irregulars who declined to partake of the Kool-Aid retain sufficient visual acuity to notice and critique the Emperor’s wardrobe malfunctions.
 

Beggin’ the Colonel’s pardon, but, with all due respect, sir, grass is not blue and the sky is not green.

Politicized Military Would Lose Public Trust, Official Says

The People have to understand that the military serves the political masters The People choose to saddle them with.  Enthusiastically, sometimes.  With gritted teeth, sometimes.  Professionally, almost always.

The People have to understand that the choices they make at election time have consequences.  Congress decides what the military gets paid.  Congress decides which generals and admirals get promoted.  Congress decides how large the military will be, where it will be stationed, and how much money will be spent on barracks maintenance, ammunition, body armor.   Presidents come and go.  Eight years and they’re gone.  Representatives stay decades.  The length of entire military careers.

The People have to understand that their choice for Commander-in-Chief has great bearing on who gets sent into harm’s way, for what purpose, whether they’re in it to win, lose or play patty-cake.  The People have to understand that their own answers to polling questions, their own support or opposition, their own grant or denial of legitimacy, plays out on the battlefield.  Somebody pays for The People’s resolution, or lack thereof, in blood. 

The People have to understand that nobody swore any oath to defend them.

My perception is being managed here to perceive attempted innoculation from post-Inaugural charges of being Former Regime Loyalists.

And they wonder why 73 plus percent of military members are registered as Republicans

 

From TF 134 Strategic Communications Plan:

KEY AUDIENCES
In fire support terms, High-Payoff Targets (HPTs) are those targets whose loss to the enemy will most contribute to the success of the friendly course of action. In communication terms, high-payoff targets are most often referred to as Key Audiences—that is, those audiences who can appreciably affect the success or failure of the counterinsurgency mission here.
• The Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen of Task Force 134
• Internees and their families, Tribal Chiefs and Sheiks
• The Iraqi People and their Leaders
• The Middle Eastern Islamic Community
• Coalition Nations, United Nations Partners and Non-Governmental Organizations
• Our Own Communities and U.S. National Decision Makers
We must never take for granted the support we have at home. Without it we would be unable to persevere; a necessity in times such as these. Sharing our successes with those at home is essential to preserving U.S. popular and political will.

Camp Cropper ain’t Luft Stalag III. That which we needed four years ago we now have in great abundance thanks to Lynndie England’s Blue Falconry.

TARGETED AREAS OF INFLUENCE
In fire support targeting, the best places to engage HPTs are called Targeted Areas of Influence (TAIs). In communication planning, these points or areas where the organization can best influence a target are not only geographic, but modal as well. That is, organizational communication engages key audiences regionally and through various targeting modes to include traditional news media and interpersonal transactions that encourage supportive behavior.
• Command Leadership
• Iraqi News Media
Nearly 80 percent of Iraqis cite television as their most important source of information. We will be aggressive in securing their interest, and open to providing them the greatest access possible.
• Middle Eastern News Media
Arabic-language news organizations have tremendous reach; we will leverage this capability to speak to the greater Islamic community throughout the region.
• Arab Religious and Academic Influencers
• Senior Coalition, United Nations and Non-Governmental Leaders
• Western News Media
The western press is here in Iraq, and they are curious about what we do. Again, transparency is essential, and our enthusiasm in providing access speaks volumes of our intentions. The same can be said of the so-called “hometown” news agencies, which might not have a presence in Iraq, but can certainly be targeted through direct communication.

Enthusiasm? Stay tuned tomorrow

 

Rather than spin it as a propaganda victory, we should be ridiculing their incompetence.   A big deal should be made of the bravery and professionalism of the Afghans in  Karzai’s Personal Security Detail.  Pashtuns respect successful assassins.  They’ve been whacking each other since Alexander the Great came through.  Ridicule directed at the Taliban, and the surviving wannabe assassins, would embarass the hell out of old muj who still support this gang that can’t shoot straight.  Back in their day, they got their man, by cracky!

Making a harsh example of the Officer-in-Charge of event security and his chain of command would be good, too.  Dans ce pay-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un generale pour encourager les autres.

Psychology: The Hard Truth about a Soft Science

Genghis Khan didn’t have psychologists, but he did PSYOP.  Spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt amongst one’s enemies has a much longer history than the “discipline of psychology.”

Taliban bitten by a snake in the grass

We’re across the Rhine and we don’t even know it.  Okinawa will be bad.  Victory is nigh. 

The moonbats really hate the idea that Rumsfeld ran a successful influence operation on them.  Not a perfect influence operation.  Not an influence operation that wouldn’t impact the credibility of future influence operations.  But it worked.  For a while.

We invaded Iraq to destabilize the entire Middle East, so-called “friends” along with acknowledged enemies.  Probably not a good idea to publicly rub the noses of the friendlier of our so-called “friends” in that unpalatable fact.  Americans as a rule value honesty, straight talk, saying what you mean.  Lefty Americans whine incessantly about hypocrisy, fixating on it in tiresome tirades of projection.

We’re a Westphalian nation-state superpower at war with a stateless, amorphous, ad hoc group of Islamic religious extremists who are stereotypically Arabs, Persians or Pashtuns who do not value directness like we do.  We have a big problem with effectively differentiating messages for our different target audiences.  The Bad Guys hear and read everything we do.  The domestic oppositional elements within our polity seek out any inconsistancies between messages to politicize for their benefit.

We need code words for the discerning to pick up on in determining the intended TA. 

 

 

“We just need to make them two-and-a-half times better than the enemy.”
The New Strategy for Afghanistan’s Cops  isn’t so new to regular readers of this blog.