Comments on: When getting high just isn’t “cool”

By: Bob

Bob — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 12:54:43 +0000

Lex,
Very solid points you make, particularly the points about COIN. I agree with the fact that COIN is difficult and must be situationally dependant, however, I think it is a mistake to say that military is not trained for these operations. We are trained; the trick is the subtle shift from Iraq COIN to Afghan COIN. Heck, even Afghan COIN is regionally dependent. General McChrystal is definitely setting a new tone and his direction is making it down to the troop on the ground level very quickly.

Language is a huge issue. You have the ANA that is largely from the north and speaking Dari or Farsi working in Helmand where the people speak Pashto. Our troops are learning some Pashto, but they will never be fluent in it. Good interpreters are gold out there.

Growing the Afhan National Police is the long term solution to many of the regional problem, as they generally come from the local communities. But, if you think the ANA is corrupt, you should see the ANP (with the Afghan Border Police falling waaaay back on the trust scale). But the answer is in growing these groups, collectively known as the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). The question of political will and national patience is a legitimate one after 8 plus years in there, no question about that.

Success will be slow, but I think it will come about in this manner: First the ANSF organizations will have to survive and accept their mission. This will likely happen with corruption as the lubrication for accomplishment. This is not much different than the “old boy network” in the States. Secondly, once they begin to see success, then they will be able to fight corruption from within the organization.

This is very do-able. The debate is at what cost in lives, time, and money. We lost a lot of ground in the past few years and it will take some time to make up for it. I, for one, am optimistic.

By: Lex

Lex — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 04:28:29 +0000

Bob,

Thanks for commenting. I would have replied sooner, but i spent the holiday where it took 15 minutes of driving to get cell reception so internet was pretty out of the picture.

I didn’t concentrate many words on it, but i don’t think that this clip is indicative of the whole ANA. This is clearly the worst possible example, but building an army is never easy and i’ve seen a lot of clips made by servicemen suggesting that this isn’t an outlier in describing the relationship between the US soldiers and their Afghan counterparts.

Does Obama seem to have the right idea? IMO, yes…generally…excepting that COIN as described in the new manuals is A. very difficult, B. wholly dependent on the situation to which it’s applied and C. not what the US military has been trained or equipped to do. But it’s eight years too late and not a big enough commitment to turn the situation around in the time frame that domestic politics will demand.

I don’t doubt that ANA commanders give excellent briefings in near-flawless English. That doesn’t change the fact that if we hope to run the COIN doctrine successfully then our commanders should be able to give briefings in near-flawless Pashto, Dari, etc. (This is, of course, dependent on whether we actually want to implement a counter insurgency doctrine or call colonial occupation “counter insurgency” so that we don’t have to call it colonial occupation.)

Like i’ve said, i hope that i’m wrong in my analysis…but that doesn’t change it.

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Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:01:48 +0000

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By: Bob

Bob — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:22:08 +0000

Up Front Diclaimer: I just returned from a six month tour in Helmand Province. While there, I worked a good bit with the ANA so my views are tainted by actual experience. I also recognize a bit of tunnell vision, as I only worked with one ANA unit, whose command was largely considered a model of success.

The ANA is by no means a perfec organization, there are pockets of hope, however. The first sign of success is when the leadership of the ANA gets on board with the program. There are units that have done so, and there are untis that have not. As long as units have poor leaership, they will continue to retain poor soldiers. Good Afghan leadership raise expectations and results to much higher degree.

I saw the ANA Commanding Officer brief (in very good English BTW) Gen. McChrystal, Senator Levin and Senator Kerry. Each time he pulled no punches and admitted the probems they faced, but was generally optimistic about future success.

The mentorship is a key part of or success there. A video showing snipits of an ETT chastising them is funny and in many cases accurate. But this shows me that we need more mentors. They need to learn how to have an Army for it to be successful. This will not happen quickly.

Where they have been they have seen success. Your video clip was posted to youtube in March of 2009, so it is fairly recent, but still it was fimed before any of Obama’s committments to the region had arrived on the ground. What you saw was the frustration of an ETT asked to do job with very littel big picture support.