Fragged By Power Point

Racial image led to removal of 82nd commanders

2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment decapitated by whoever inserted this into their briefing:

“As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well,”

“Our level of intelligence is so lacking,”

U.S. ambassador puts brakes on plan to utilize Afghan militias against Taliban

Afghan officials and Eikenberry have also expressed concern that unless there is a detailed plan to connect these village security forces to Ministry of Interior oversight, they could fuel the rise of warlords and undermine the already fragile government in Kabul. Another worry is that the local tribal leaders could manipulate U.S. officers who do not understand politics and tribal grievances in a particular area, U.S. officials said.

“Our level of intelligence is so lacking,” said an adviser to the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan. “We could be supporting people whose interests are not what we think they are.”

State’s level of intelligence is lacking.

Winning Afghanistan at the Community Level by Christopher D. Kolenda

There is nothing more demoralizing than getting clobbered for a cause that people no longer support.

The community level will be decisive—and that support is entirely up for grabs. Communities have been neutral thus far, in part out of a survival psychology that has emerged over the past 30 years. Moreover, the sentiment of many community leaders is that they have not taken a side in this conflict because no one has taken their side. As several elders have remarked, “We are robbed by our government, bombed by international forces, and beaten by the Taliban.” The side that mobilizes their support will tip the balance.

Addressing the underlying conditions enables us to earn local support, disaggregate the enemy, and then apply appropriate means to coopt and reintegrate local fighters, while isolating and destroying the ideological hardcore in detail. Effective security, governance, and development that enfranchise local communities are existential threats to the insurgency.

The regime in Saigon didn’t much care for the CIDG.

Maliki never cared much for the Sons of Iraq. The Marines noted his concerns and pacified Anbar with the help of Sunni militias anyway.

Now the English-speaking Tajiks in Kabul and all their Euroweenie NGO buddies have convinced the American Ambassador to retard the progress of what could have been a success story.

Shit.

Who Was Nasir Paray?

According to Dexter Filkins, he was the commander of one of the many pro-government armed groups in the Gardez area.

According to Rohullah Samon, a spokesman for the governor of Paktia province, the attack happened at 4:30pm outside a branch of the Kabul Bank when the suicide bomber approached on foot.  “The head of a security company… was moving with his convoy when he was attacked by a suicide bomber wearing a suicide vest,”

According to KEYC Channel 12 Mankato, the security teams that were attacked are joint civilian-military units that secure and develop areas of Afghanistan.

According to AP’s reporting of what Paktia Deputy Gov. Abdul Rahman Mangal said, seven people were killed, including the commander of Afghan security guards at a base for a provincial reconstruction team in Logar province.

Is there more than one PRT in Logar? 

Do they have any bases other than Shank?

Does this blog have any readers at FOB Shank who can confirm or deny that their ASG commander was killed in Gardez?

If Nasir Paray was the commander of one of the many pro-government armed groups in the Gardez area, which one was it?  Do they have a name?

If Nasir Paray was the head of a security company, which security company?

If Nasir Paray was the ASG commander at Shank, what was he doing in a convoy in front of the Gardez branch of the Bank of Kabul on a Thursday afternoon?

And what had he done that so annoyed the Taliban that they expended a PBIED and much good will to take him out?

The outhouse has become a cesspit

ajacksonian comment at Hot Air via that Army of Davids guy

From Walter Russell Mead:

Jacksonians are instinctively democratic and populist. Hamiltonians mistrust democracy; Wilsonians don’t approve of the political rough and tumble. And while Jeffersonians support democracy in principle, they remain concerned that tyrannical majorities can overrule minority rights. Jacksonians believe that the political and moral instincts of the American people are sound and can be trusted, and that the simpler and more direct the process of government is, the better will be the results. In general, while the other schools welcome the representative character of our democracy, Jacksonians tend to see representative rather than direct institutions as necessary evils, and to believe that governments breed corruption and inefficiency the way picnics breed ants. Every administration will be corrupt; every Congress and legislature will be, to some extent, the plaything of lobbyists. Career politicians are inherently untrustworthy; if it spends its life buzzing around the outhouse, it’s probably a fly. Jacksonians see corruption as human nature and, within certain ill-defined boundaries of reason and moderation, an inevitable by-product of government.

The outhouse has become a cesspit and now threatens to seep into the basement and take the house with it. You can’t sleep but for the flies and it is well past time to cover up that old pit, back fill it, shore up the foundations of the house and get out the bug spray.

A Tea Party will not be built solely on getting the disaffected from the current two parties, it must reach out into the Independent voting block that is now made up of those who have walked away from both parties and will not adhere to either as they are the parties of flies. Indeed registering disaffected voting age Americans who have let their voting lapse into non-voting is the essential route to take to shift the balance in the US. Those who have been beaten down by ‘bi-partisanship’ and ‘third ways’ and ‘across the aisle agreements’ now see that the flies are equal on both sides of the aisle and that both sides want a larger cess pit, it is just a question of rate of expansion not of doing the deed.

That is the greatest power in America – individuals realizing their liberty and freedom are at stake and exercising their franchise right to choose whoever they want who represents THEM and not a PARTY. Those fundamentals of continually securing the number one greatest freedom, which is the freedom FROM government is one that must be continually repeated, refreshed and renewed. Elected members are not there to ‘help’ this or that segment of the population at the expense of everyone, but to allow individuals to lead the freest life so that liberty can be best used to secure one’s own place in the world and, from that, create a stronger society and a stronger Nation.

The old two party rhetoric now blurs into a zero party State which is ruled by elites who want nothing more than to rule, not govern. Do not accept their either/or solutions when liberty and freedom demonstrate that there are a plethora of ways to do things and that is best left up to you, as an individual, not to any government from local to National. And it is in the local areas that a Tea Party movement will have the most effect: local lawmaking, local regulations, local taxation, local graft, and the dismantling of local political machines.

It is your life, your home, your liberty and your Nation.

Don’t let others tell you what is right or wrong, or how much they will give you if only you will give up your liberty… your freedom… to them.

One man makes a majority.

And that is you.

No one else can do that for you.

Your life depends upon it.

ajacksonian on January 9, 2010 at 9:32 AM

 

Couldn’t have said it better myself.