Looks like the Guardians of Wardak aren’t meeting expectations.
Allied exit strategy at risk as Afghan police run out of recruits
Recruits for the Afghan Public Protection Force are usually sent to Laghman to be trained by American Special Forces. “There hasn’t been a single recruit for more than a month and a half,” General Agha said. “More than a hundred people were rounded up and sent to the training centre, but the commander in charge told me they ran away. Iran opened the border [in the west] and they all thought it was better to go abroad.”
Those who do graduate are armed with AK47 assault rifles and most serve as “light infantry in counterinsurgency operations”, according to a critical report by the European Union.
Too bad.
Been tracking AP3 about 10 months now:
Wardak Awakening, 12/23/09
Afghan Public Protection Force, 02/02/09
Did ANSO Strategically Leak a Classified Email to HuffPo?, 02/11/09
Saydabad Jezailchis, 03/25/09
Jalrez Jezailchis on AlJazeera, 03/28/09
Jalrez Jezailchis Off To Rough Start, 04/09/09
No Zayawalat Jezailchis, 04/14/09
Will Johnny Utah Ever See His Surefire Again?, 05/2/09
Commander Tor Gol, Nirkh Jezailchis, 06/03/09
Wardak Jezailchis Didn’t Cover Themselves With Glory
Clicking on the above links will give you a good idea of what the Quiet Professionals have strategically communicated, or allowed to be strategically communicated unrebutted, about what used to be one of their core competencies.
Non-victory makes perfect sense in the political context of someone whose idea of a solution is a ‘deal’
Read The real thing @ TBC.
America won’t be run out of Afghanistan. It will lose interest and walk away.
6. Nomenklatura:
‘Managing a conflict’, which means actually extending it for the mutual convenience of collaborators in Washington and Karachi, and continuously bleeding our armed forces to make it happen, is not what the US Armed Forces have ever been about, nor should it be. Only a politician who sees the US soldier as no more than an ignorant, expendable peasant could commit this error…
32. Armeggedon Rex:
Many have commented here at the Belmont Club and elsewhere asking something similar to: “If Obama were intentionally trying to wreck the U.S., without being immediately impeached, how would his actions be any different than everything we’ve seen thus far?”
At first I wrote these folks off as excessively partisan, but as time passes, and mind-blowing idiocies pile up, I’m thinking more and more that they make an excellent point.
50. wretchard:
The difference between what Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson did is an example of right versus wrong application. One gave you Korea and the other Vietnam. It’s easy now to forget the Iraqi sanctions regime, the Bosnian crisis, etc. were not obviously better, or carried on ad infinitum, necessarily cheaper in terms of human life than going in and doing something. But going in doing something created its own complications. That’s probably what President Obama is afraid of, to give him his due. Giving McChrystal extra men lets him change the game — which the general wants to do — but which carries the risk of introducing new elements. It’s like letting him shuffle the deck and re-deal. What does the President prefer? The devil he knows or the devil he doesn’t?
Not who I thought it was at first glance
The author of Fundamentals of Guerrilla Warfare
Media Malpractice: Tom Brokaw’s World Implodes
Americans have learned the hard way that there was and is a serious effort by some of the most powerful figures in American journalism to quite deliberately keep Americans from making “informed decisions” by denying them accurate information. By ignoring major news stories. By not reporting stories that were or are at variance with liberal politics
More:
. . . across five decades of American journalistic history, the instinct of many Old Media institutions — specifically including NBC and the New York Times — has been to deliberately withhold the truth. To quite deliberately use their journalism skills and tools to misrepresent those whose politics they do not favor.
The money quote:
What once was a considerable reservoir of trust and respect has been drained bone dry.
Two kids with a video camera and some cheesy clothes have done what all the talk show hosts haven’t been able to do over the last year
Found in a comment at TAH:
8 Dave Thul Says:
September 15th, 2009 at 10:07 pm Whatever else comes of this, you have to admire the two people behind the camera. The film maker said on Beck that they had spent about 1300 bucks on the whole thing.Imagine that. Two kids with a video camera and some cheesy clothes have done what all the talk show hosts haven’t been able to do over the last year-take a bite out of ACORN. The census bureau cut ties, and the Senate voted to cut all federal funding. Whether or not the House goes along with it, it was inconceivable two weeks ago that ACORN would be on the outs with Congress.Good work to those two.
James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles are the Civilian Irregular Information Operators /Strategic Citizens I’ve been waiting for.
Strategy Page list this under Peacekeeping:
September 7, 2009: China has quietly been training Afghan police, in the area along the China/Afghan border (the Wakhan Corridor). This area has never been very violent, and escaped most of the fighting that has torn apart Afghanistan since the 1970s. But China refuses to open its border with Afghanistan, fearing complications with the mainly Moslem population on their side of the frontier.
While the Chinese training effort, which is fairly small, has been reported inside China, it has received little, or no, notice by the Western media.
That piqued my interest when I read it, so much that I commented over there:
Cannoneer No. 4 China has a Police Mentoring Team in Badakhshan? 9/7/2009 6:53:28 PM
Does Regional Police Advisory Command of Afghan Regional Security Integration Command – North know about this?What kind of Afghan Police are being trained by the Chinese? Border Police? Counter Narcotics Police? Counter Terrorism Police? Copper mine security Auxiliary Police?
What kind of Chinese are training Afghan Police? People’s Liberation Army Special Operations Forces? Chinese Armed Police Commando Unit?
Why should China open a border crossing at 4,293 meters [14,084 feet] above sea level that is snowed under seven months of the year? Did the Chinese PMT enter Afghanistan at Wakhjir Pass?
Nobody answered any of my questions over there. Perhaps the readership over here knows something.
I don’t think China refuses to open its border with Afghanistan. I think there is no there, there at the border crossing. No town, no road, nothing. I can’t even find a pic of a guard shack. According to Wikipedia,
There is no road across the pass. On the Afghan side the nearest road is a rough road to Sarhad-e Wakhan (also known as Sarhad-e Broghil), about 100 km [62 miles] from the pass by paths. On the Chinese side there is a jeep track about 15 km [9.3 miles] from the pass, which leads to the Karakoram Highway 80 km [50 miles] away. The pass is closed for at least five months a year and is open irregularly for the remainder.
“If God didn’t want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep”
Everything I know about mobilizing Village Self Defense Militias I learned from Yul Brynner and Anthony Quinn.
Dr. Ron Holt thinks Afghan Village Militias might be a People-Centric Strategy to Win.
The Civilian Conservation Corps look.
Purple T-shirts.
Red T-shirts.
Brown shirts.
One of their classic uniforms. Much more flattering to the gravitationally challenged than the skin tight XXXL T-shirt
Nematullah Habib, representative for the Independent Elections Commission (IEC) in Wardak, told The Times that “my polling workers didn’t see any of the tribal or mahali police. They didn’t help us.”
Provincial police chief Gen. Muzafardeen disputed that claim, saying that 540 guards did, in fact, show up as promised to six high-risk districts across the province.
Who to believe?
Comments from wretchard’s The mandate of heaven thread:
11. Subotai Bahadur:
. . . This fight for the future of the country is going on despite, not because of, any Republican resurgence. The Republican Party machinery dreams of being coopted and absorbed into the regime power structure, not fighting it.
As far as the decision to prosecute the former administration; it is expected. Be they Stalin’s show trials, the Nazi Volksgerichtshof, or the public confessions and “self-criticism” in front of Mao’s Red Guards; all totalitarians have some form of kangeroo court mechanism to lend a pseudo-legitimacy to their abuses of power. The outcome is pre-ordained and I am sure there have been meetings in the White House on what the sentences will be and how they will be announced.
In the first 7 months of the first Anno Obama we have seen the rule of law discarded, Congress become a rubber stamp eager to pass any bill put before them unread, and the Constitution ignored. We have a new Supreme Court Justice whose rulings will, by her own words, be based on race and gender. We have seen the President threaten those who oppose him with mobs on more than one occasion, and seen violations of the law by Obama’s supporters deliberately ignored by his Attorney General. The confidence in the validity and honesty of either the census or the coming election [if it happens] is not high. So such prosecutions are of a piece with life in the new America.
If we survive the evil times that are coming. IF. Those Who Are No Longer Our Countrymen will find that it will do them no good to appeal to the law and Constitution that they have rendered moot. For we will have to rebuild a civil society before they come back into effect. But first, we will have to deal with those who destroyed it. Lex Talonis
18. no mo uro:
. . . in this age good ideas aren’t enough, you need someone who is telegenic and an excellent, charismatic speaker, despite whatever risks are incurred in giving a person like that power.
. . . We live in an age when much of the American public has transformed from having its chief goal of being productive transformed into being entertained. Whiskey’s single urban sluts, their urban metrosexual sycophantic men, suburban/rural NPR listening soccer moms, public sector union guys, and the like, all fall into that category. They will not care if the conservative or libertarian in question is rumpled and a bad speaker while going up against a slick, sexy leftist in a TV debate. These are people who are more interested in image and being entertained than they are in literally anything else. You’ll never peel them off in any amount unless you have someone who appeals to the image machine.
29. Mongoose:
We have to move the nation back to founding principles. We have to rollback all of the work of the Democrats since FDR. There is no other way. It is the false dichotomy of Democrat vs. Republicans that we must unseat. The real opposition is between internal enemies who wish to destroy us and those who wish to save us, and it is an objective choice. It is not merely matter of pragmatically weighing the subjective points of view of political sections.
30. 907ie:
. . . Capitalism has had it’s run, and “democracy” has committed suicide. What comes next is anybody’s guess, but would you put your faith in Barney Frank or Rock River Arms?
33. nullification now:
What August has wrought is a determination to end the madness. The tipping point has long been reached and there is no turning back. The ordinary citizen has made his stand and it is now up to the emissaries to establish once and for all this is a country based on the Constitution of the United States of America.
When congress returns in September the battle is joined, the Republicans know that the majority of citizens insist this administration must completely change course. If they are unable to articulate the mood and advocate the demands then other means must be necessary.
October is pivotal, either we fight for reestablishing a constitionualy mandated government or submit to the chaos of change that this current administration insist on. We are no longer a two party system but one of patriots vs internecine cult.
Friend of mine told me the other day in conversation.
I am gettin tired, really tired. I am past angry. I can see what is to come. I have been watching this drunk of a country stagger down the road weaving from right to left and back. Sometimes two steps forward then three steps back. Slowly, oh so slowly this drunk has “progressed” toward this coming day. I am slow to anger always have been. I am patient, even as a child my grandmother said it about me. “Natural born hunter” she said. My patience with this drunk is about gone. This drunk is about to meet his fate. And I will do all that is in my power to see that my children and grandchildren do not have to deal with this drunk anymore.
I had never thought of him as being a radical. He is about as square as they come. I will be glad to have him with me on the line when the time comes.
So Mote It Be.
The Corner at NRO has a link to a post by Charles Murray. Which in turn points to every part of the White population becoming more conservative over time EXCEPT the “Liberal Gentry” which Kotkin coined, the entertainment/media/legal/marketing people, which is btw profoundly oriented towards single young women in urban areas with disposable income, what Kay Hymnowitz called “the New Girl Order.”
This is NOT a fight between Republicans and Obama. It IS a fight between Obama and the Gentry Liberals, the wealthy elites, and the White population of everyone else.
They will not back down, they cannot. Either the elites rule the White population like serfs and servants, or the Elites are destroyed. Bush (and the transparent attempt to charge Bush, Cheney, and the CIA) does not matter, what matters is the elites trying to enslave the people, with ObamaCare, Cap and Trade, everything else.
And there is no going back. No turning back time, no de-escalation. By its very nature, the people, leaderless and grassroots, cannot and will not de-escalate. The current Constitution, Congress, Media, Presidency, Legal System, Federal Bureaucracy, will be swept away one way or another.
Either Obama and his Gentry turn America into Cuba, with hereditary rule (which btw single women LOVE, it’s every princess fantasy come to life) that turns America into a gigantic copy of Castro’s Hereditary Hacienda system, or the people construct a new Jacksonian system based on rewarding THEM and punishing their enemies (the Gentry, and their political allies) explicitly.
But either way, the America as we knew it is gone. Gone: the legitimacy and trust of the media and entertainment. Gone: the Republican party as an institution. Gone: any trust in Dems or the Gentry Liberals. Gone: tolerance for leftism or leftism spoils politics like Affirmative Action, multiculturalism, pc, etc. Gone: legitimacy and trust of the legal system and bureaucracy.
The Belmont Club is for most intents and purposes a Resistance think tank. Richard Fernandez personally participated in anti-Marcos Resistance activities in the Philippines. Much of the best thought appears in the comments.
The Republican Party is busy thinking up new ways to seek carnal knowledge of the canine
Belmont Clubber Subotai Bahadur:
The Republicans and Conservatives are two different entities, not yet completely divorced but with irreconciliable differences. The Conservatives are resisting Buraq Hussein, the Republicans are trying to be eaten last. I’m pretty sure that the Republican party is busy thinking up new ways to seek carnal knowledge of the canine as we write.
Ain’t that the truth?
The Republican Party is only slightly less execrable than the Democrats.
Join the Politically Incorrect Party. Throw all the bums out. Radicalized ex-conservative Cultural Revolutionaries are gathering at Tea Parties and town hall meetings across this great land. Disgusted ex-Republicans, disgruntled ex-Democrats and disputatious ex-conservatives united in defiance of whoever presumes to rule free citizens of this Constitutional Republic are making their displeasure apparent to the perpetual incumbency.
We already have term limits. Think about it. Would an honest man run for reelection and spend more on his campaign than the job pays?
1SG Joe Crisostomo, 59 years old, grandfather of seven, Bronze Star, Vietnam, Desert Storm, retired in ‘93, came back.
Army 1st Sgt. Jose S.N. Crisostomo, 59, of Inarajan, Guam, died Aug. 18 in Kabul, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle. He was assigned to International Security Assistance Force Kabul, Kabul, Afghanistan.
If participating in Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attacks on the regime sounds like fun to you, read Spam offers to let people use their PC to attack Obama site and And Now Hackers are DDoSing Obama – Or are they Just Zombifying Your Machine?
Civilian Irregular Information Operators are on both sides of the Idea War. The demographic stereotypically associated with hackers would generally trend towards supporting the regime. How did Axelrod get your email address?
Don’t be surprised some fine morning when you go to check out your favorite blogs and find a bunch of them down. That would be the regime’s Supportive Civilian Irregular Information Operators implementing Restrictive Measures against what they see as the propaganda of Opposition Civilian Irregular Information Operators. Of course, Robert Gibbs will plausibly deny any Administration involvement.
H/T: Daily Uprising
Now that mobile phones are essentially small computers, instant Internet access is widely distributed. Men, women and children hold a global link with audio- and video-recording capability in their palm.
These small digital devices make everyone a potential reporter or a spy. Even the “accidental reporter” has near-instantaneous global reach.
Digital empowerment (the technology and the connective reach) also makes everyone a potential gadfly. American city councils and school boards are learning this lesson. The gadfly constituent who follows a special issue no longer needs column inches from the local newspaper to be heard. She can take on the mayor via her blog. In fact, as newspapers cut back on coverage or disappear, the gadflies become even more important as a means of challenging and investigating local government corruption, nepotism and other malfeasance.
Civilian Irregular Information Operators, Super-Empowered Individuals and Strategic Citizens are everywhere!
Is CYXYMU the first “digital refugee”?
What was done to him by Russian Civilian Irregular Information Operators could be done to me by Obamerican Civilian Irregular Information Operators, or Russian, or Chinese, or any other virtual militia whose enmity I might incur.
The amateurization of cyberwarfare has been one permanent feature of virtually all recent cyber-attacks that somehow implicated Russia; it may be part of a broader Kremlin effort to “crowdsource” its defenses and offenses to groups of nationalistic vigilantes, not just in cyberspace. Thus, recent news reports suggest that Nashi, Kremlin’s youth arm, will soon be recruiting up to 100,000 problematic teenagers to form ARMED militia units that would patrol the streets. It would make some sense if they also invest into units of “cyber-vigilantes” who would be patrolling cyberspace, particularly given the rising importance of the Internet in Russia’s public life.
Does the youth arm of The New Black Panther Party have an IO Cell?
Weaponized ridicule.
TARGET! Repeat, Fire!
“Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help,” continued Commissar Phillips. “If you get an email or see something on the web about health-insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov.”
Reporting dissent is the highest form of patriotism! Is your neighbor suspiciously “well-dressed”? Is he mouthing off about cancer-survival rates under socialized-medical systems while wearing a cravat? Give us his name, and we’ll give you his spats! Just go to flag@whitehouse.gov, not to be confused with flagging@whitehouse.gov, which is the e-mail address for reporting President Obama’s latest approval rating. Go to flay@whitehouse.gov if you’d like Speaker Pelosi to walk across your back as a whip-wielding SS dominatrix barking “Vee haff vays of making you tokk less casually, dummkopf!” Go to flange@whitehouse.gov if you need parts for your new government car, or your new government hip replacement. Go to flaunt@whitehouse.gov if you’d like a special preview of President Obama’s latest bare-chested pictorial for Vanity Fair. Go to flatulent@whitehouse.gov if you’d like to report your neighbor’s cow for excessive CO2 emissions.
Ridicule is a powerful weapon.
It is the use of humor at someone else’s expense. It is a zero-sum game destructive to one of the parties involved. Like a gun, it is a dangerous weapon. Even in trained hands, it can misfire. Used carelessly or indiscriminately, ridicule can create enemies were there were none, and deepen hostilities among the very peoples whom the user seeks to win over.
In nearly every aspect of society and across cultures and time, ridicule works. Ridicule leverages the emotions and simplifies the complicated and takes on the powerful, in politics, business, law, entertainment, literature, culture, sports and romance. Ridicule can tear down faster than the other side can rebuild. One might counter an argument, an image, or even a kinetic force, but one can marshal few defenses against the well-aimed barbs that bleed humiliation and drip contempt. Politicians fear ridicule. Some take ridicule well and emerge stronger for it; others never recover from it. The perpetual circle of democracy absorbs and even breeds ridicule against individuals and ideas, while the system itself remains intact. While ridicule can be a healthy part of democracy, it can weaken the tyrant. — J. Michael Waller
More from Waller:
Dictators, tyrants, and those aspire to seize and keep power by intimidation and force can tolerate no public ridicule. They generally harbor grandiose self-images with little bearing on how people really think of them. They require a controlled political environment, reinforced by sycophants and toadies, to preserve an impenetrable image. Some are more tolerant of reasoned or principled opposition but few of satire or ridicule. The size of their egos may be seen as inversely proportional to the thickness of their skin. However, few are true madmen; most are rational and serious.[5]
And here is one to remember:
“No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled,”
Contractor Seeks ‘Cyber Warriors’ to Help Defend U.S.
National cybersecurity is a hugely growing field, with the crude but effective shutdown of U.S. and South Korean government Web sites over July 4 weekend coming as the latest example of our weaknesses.
A report released just this past Wednesday found that the federal government is woefully behind in cybersecurity, with the lack of trained personnel the biggest problem.
Information Operations/Information Assurance Software engineers/developers – JAVA/J2EE/, JAVA/XML, C++ FPGA expertise Software security engineers Test engineers Software testers Systems administrators – Linux, Solaris, Unix, Red Hat, VMware (Certifications are preferred) Systems engineers – CNO, CNA, CNE, NOC, Requirements management
NOC is Network Operations Center. Had to look that up.
How many military Information Operations can be conducted without the involvement of non-military information operators? And of those non-military information operators, how many are Government Employees?
H/T: Bill Austin
Balint Szlanko is embedded with 10th Mountain in Wardak and Logar.
Excerpt:
The main problem at this stage is that it seems very difficult to get the Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group of Afghanistan and the main support base of the Taliban, to join. No Afghan regime is going to be stable without them, which explains the problems faced by Kabul today. Out of the 250 or so watchmen in Jalrez, for instance, no more than 50 are Pashtun.
Wardak has Pashtuns, Hazaras and Tajiks. Last April the Pashtuns in Zayawalat village of Jalrez district didn’t send any young men for Guardian training. The Armed Opposition Groups, of which the Taliban are merely the most famous, are almost all Pashtun, 90-95%.
Pashtun Armed Supportive Groups would be right handy.
A commenter calling himself Grandpa on a thread at American Thinker entitled Are Men Obsolete? has summarized what the Culture War is all about:
Posted by: Grandpa
Jul 22, 12:45 AM——————————————————————————–
Well there are a few of us left but we’re a dying breed.
I suspect we are all middle aged or older…and old school to the core. Actually, many of us know our inner child. The difference between us and the metrosexuals is that we don’t dwell there but for private time with our wives, our kids, our grandkids, the neighbor’s grandkids and our dogs (no frigging cats dammit).
I’d venture to say most of us live well between the coasts. Men that wear sandals don’t generally qualify: leaving feet exposed to danger is stupid. You can’t fight or run.
All the ones I know have an unshakable grasp on reality. That’s a big deal. I respect dreamers but I don’t want one steering the ship-of-state.
In some ways, our life choices were easy. We didn’t suffer the dilemma of working vs. staying at home.
Old school guys generally do something real to earn their keep. I’m an engineer…and a pilot…and a farmer. Just fact. I’ve never been a soldier and I regret that. I hold real soldiers in the highest esteem.
Those of us that are really hard core don’t watch professional sports anymore. Too many idiot millionaires and the so called teams have different players every year. Screw that.
Country music still has a melody so we might listen to it. Just about everything else that passes for music isn’t…except some old rock ‘n roll. Regardless, we spend a lot of time thinking and for that, silence is best.
We have an incredible sense of duty…and loyalty…and fidelity. We love our country for what it once was and what it might again be. That said, I think a lot of us feel, rightly or wrongly, that the sacrifices we made toward building our nation have been betrayed. We actually wanted to leave things better than we found them….for our kids and yours. Really.
We HATE friggin’ liars and the world is full of them. That’s why we look cranky.
We hate the very concept of patience. Patience sucks. Show me a patient guy and I’ll show you someone (in sandals) that hasn’t accomplished crap.
We love our girls….our mothers, our wives, our daughters and our granddaughters. We don’t always understand them but we know we are loved back. We love our sons and pray they might pick up enough of Dad’s old school ways to survive in a tough world. We worry about the idiot neighbor kid and how he’ll survive his parents.
We actually pray from time to time…real prayers, fervent prayers…but we’re not given to bothering God all that much.
We believe in tattered ideas like honor, shame, self-respect and personal responsibility. We’ve almost always played by the rules and the times that we didn’t haunt us.
We believed in multiculturalism long before it became a fad: anyone could earn our respect. On the other hand, no one got it for free (and they still don’t).
A lot of us are deeply troubled these days. We know the country no longer has the guts to do hard things. We wonder if it ever will again. Ike, McArthur, Patton, Nimitz, Rickover….is anyone filling their shoes? Will we ever again fight a war to win? If John Kennedy’s challenge were made today, could we muster the engineers, physicists, pilots, machinists and electricians needed to put man on the moon in less than 10 years? Who would land at Normandy?
I really do hope that some of our sons got a case of “old school” that can’t be cured. I worry about that.
I’m tracking pretty closely with Grandpa.
