There's a lot of cursing in this one, even for a Hitler Downfall video.
If it is in fact true that an ODA -- that is, a Special Forces A-team -- cannot leave the wire without filing a 45-slide Powerpoint presentation explaining their mission.... I don't even know how to finish that sentence. The first part of the sentence is so unbelievable that no concluding remarks really make sense.
It's as if I were trying to finish a sentence that began, "If it is in fact true that monkey-shaped leprechauns have begun to sprout from the acorns of hickory trees..." Yes, I could append some more words, but no set of words can repair the nonsense embedded in the opening assumption. Hickory trees don't have acorns, and ODAs don't have to file lengthy permission slips with a Combined-Joint-level headquarters in order to go outside the wire. The monkey-shaped leprechauns, however, may be real.
16 comments:
Apparently, the war must be over.
It sounds that way, doesn't it?
I wouldn't have believed it at all, except that (a) it came from a SF friend, alongside remarks that the CONOP process has largely replaced the five-para OPORD, and has gotten out of control; and (b) I was recently talking to someone else who told me that his guys (non-SF) weren't allowed to go to the Afghan side of their joint Afghan/US base without the full battle rattle: helmet, armor, everything. That's to walk to the other side of the base.
Why don't we have either candidate talking about this, I'd like to know? If the war is over from a practical perspective, why are our guys still sitting out there to be shot at? That's a question I'd like answered.
"If the war is over from a practical perspective, why are our guys still sitting out there to be shot at? That's a question I'd like answered."
Damned if this don't sound like deja vu all over again. Or what Der Fuhrer said at 1:48.
Death by PowerPoint.
Why don't we have either candidate talking about this, I'd like to know? If the war is over from a practical perspective, why are our guys still sitting out there to be shot at? That's a question I'd like answered.
Probably because neither one has any answers--Romney can only talk in gereralities and principles at this point, and the Obama administration is not going to talk about how screwed up the situation is right now. From what I can tell, the 'green on blue' strategy has caught basically everybody by surprise, And they literally don't know what to do about it. And the Afghans themselves don't seem to be too put out about it, either.
Like I've said before: The problem with Afghanistan is the Afghanis.
Once again the fault is ours, collectively. We are too busy being "nice and caring and kind and supportive" to see what's actually needed. The Afghans are just trying to survive by currying favor with the folks who will be running things when we leave. As we've already said we will do very soon. We have lost the ability as a group to make the hard decisions that will allow us to minimize pain {ours and others} in the long run. I hold no ill will to the folks simply doing what they have to to survive, we enabled this by letting them become more scared of the Taliban and war loards than of us. Just my perspective. YMMV.
William sends.
We are too busy being "nice and caring and kind and supportive" to see what's actually needed.
And this would be moot had there been no mission creep. We went in there to kick the crap out of a bunch of terrorists who hurt us badly. Having done that, we should have left.
Eric Hines
"We went in there to kick the crap out of a bunch of terrorists who hurt us badly. Having done that, we should have left."
Lather, rinse, repeat... Amen!
I can't imagine why Romney (or any Rethug candidate) would comment on military conduct of an ongoing war.
Unless the candidate is the type to enjoy shooting his mouth off from a position of complete and total ignorance, of course... which would be a deal killer in a world that made any sense.
That's what Obama did wrt the war while he was a candidate, and look how that turned out. He got into office, got read in, and discovered that things that seem "obvious" on the campaign trial aren't quite so simple in real life.
Personally, I think more of a candidate who has the good sense to realize that until you are actually doing the job and have had time to figure out what's what, you should probably keep your mouth shut (assuming that Romney OR Obama even know about this, that it's actually true, et cetera, ad nauseum).
I have no problem admitting that I don't know if it's true or not. And neither does anyone else who watched this video. And even if I did know, I wouldn't know the reasoning behind the policy.
It's always easy to criticize decisions from the comfy chair or even from inside/outside the wire, but I'll wager that if this is true, there's just a bit more to it than was presented on a Hitler Learns about... YouTube video.
When you are part of a multi-nation NATO command in a foreign country you *claim* not to be at war with, in the midst of formally handing over security to that country's armed forces and police, I'm guessing you can expect to have significantly less freedom than you would if you were in the middle of an invasion. If the host country doesn't particularly want you there and you can't even articulate what your mission is, all this goes double.
Finally, the idea that Special Forces (or any other units) don't need any oversight and shouldn't have to answer to anyone is suspect on its face. It's a romantic notion that's incredibly popular on the Internet, but which doesn't survive contact with the real world. SF, like everyone else in the military, works for the military leadership, who work for the civilian leadership. They're not supposed to be calling the shots because our system was set up that way on purpose.
There's no denying that we're in a lousy position over there: half in, half out. The US was *never* in charge in Afghanistan, and consequently we have to pay attention to what the host country wants and to what our coalition partners want. This isn't all-out "war" - it's an incredibly complex political situation in which force is used to gain some objectives but not others.
And meanwhile we're being shot at, which sucks.
From what I can tell, the 'green on blue' strategy has caught basically everybody by surprise,
Well, it didn't catch me by surprise at all. It was an entirely predictable consequence of our strategy over there (which is set by the civilian leadership).
How many times did various pundits point out that announcing a fixed deadline for withdrawal (regardless of conditions on the ground) was tantamount to saying, "You don't have to beat us. You can just wait us out." to the Taliban?
Sorry for the rant, but this is an incredibly sore subject.
Cass:
I'm not sure why you suggest that the alternative to "filing 45-slide 'concept of operations' plans before every trip outside the wire, requiring approval from a headquarters unit two levels above my team" is "don't need any oversight."
It is true that SF is designed to need minimal oversight, and to be able to employ maximum flexibility. This is to address a specific set of missions -- traditionally there are five, but they're currently being reordered into three sets of several each -- that require high degrees of flexibility for success. That does not equate to no oversight at all, though: the advanced operations base (the AOB they refer to) has the usual necessary command and control.
What CJSOTF-A appears to be doing here is asking for an on-the-ground ODA to file a lengthy request that has to go through the AOB to the CJSOTF staff, where it may be kicked back down for multiple reasons. The 'CONOP' they are requiring isn't even a fully-formed order, in spite of the fact that it's actually rather longer than an actual order for a brief mission of this sort.
Generally speaking, the regular forces in Iraq only required a CONOP be passed even to the division level -- let alone to a higher headquarters -- if significant air support or air movement was required. Otherwise it was sufficient to file what amounted to a one-line statement of your plans for the platoons in your company today, along with a similar one-line report about what they did yesterday (unless something important happened, in which case the after action reporting was rather longer).
As for what a Presidential candidate ought to say, I'm afraid that your standard isn't reached by either candidate. Mr. Obama could speak about the issue of the collapse of our planning for Afghanistan, and his new thoughts on how to proceed -- or better yet, he could be addressing the issue -- but fails to do so. If he is going to want to renew or increase our commitment, this is actually an ideal time to speak because it's an occasion to obtain a specific commitment from the electorate to support (or to reject) such a program.
Mr. Romney does not have the security clearance (or, to be honest, the background) to evaluate the situation -- I agree that he is ignorant in the extreme on this point. However, he ought to be speaking to the obvious problems in order to demand answers. What is intolerable (to me, at least) is leaving our boys out there to die for another several months without making any changes, simply because the political calendar here at home makes it inconvenient.
I meant to say "even the regular forces," i.e., even the ones subject to far more oversight by design and doctrine. What's being asked for here is (if the video is a fair picture, though I'm given to understand that it is) far beyond what was asked for even for regular units in Iraq.
Another thing I meant to say -- apparently it's been a long day -- is that Mr. Romney hasn't refrained from speaking about Afghanistan. He and Mr. Ryan made comments about it just recently, and Mr. Romney has done so periodically through the campaign.
They just are not informed comments. They neither question nor detail. They tend to treat the issue as something that can wait, or as one that simply requires a fuller statement of commitment.
It seems that my lady Cassandra and I are both quite tired lately. I join her in apologizing for the many recent mistakes and oversights.
I know the feeling :p
I don't think this is fair, though:
What is intolerable (to me, at least) is leaving our boys out there to die for another several months without making any changes, simply because the political calendar here at home makes it inconvenient.
What is really intolerable is the spike in casualties that occurred in the first few years of this administration. Casualties doubled the first year, tripled the second, decreased only slightly from that year. This year, they appear to be coming down. What is suddenly worse about this?
Back then, while casualties doubled and tripled, we were loudly announcing to our enemies that there was a time limit to our willingness to fight. People were dying to gain temporary control over territory. The logical inference was that we had no intent to hold on to those gains purchased with American blood.
THAT offends me far more than what's going on now (though that bothers me plenty too). The emphasis has shifted and we're trying to hand off security to the Afghans - the whole, "as they stand up" business. Which had a second part: "...we'll stand down".
We're over there b/c the mission - such as it is - is not complete. And the nature of that mission leaves us very, very vulnerable. But overall, casualties are down Grim.
"Duty is heavier than a mountain; death is lighter than a feather." As you've observed so often, that's the job, like it or not.
I don't know to much about the Army - the culture is too different. But I can't get too exercised over a Hitler video on Youtube. To compare Afghanistan to Iraq doesn't make sense to me. They're nothing alike and never were. The entire command structure is radically different, as is the terrain, the infrastructure... everything's organized differently. I could go on and on.
FWIW, though, I wasn't suggesting that you thought there should be NO oversight :) As usual, I was responding to comments I had seen on this elsewhere (which I realize I should have made clearer).
Another clarification: I don't demand that candidates say nothing about the war. But I don't think they should get overly specific before they have the necessary perspective.
War is just politics (international politics) by other means. I complained vociferously about Obama's meddling during the 2008 campaign - we were trying to negotiate SOF agreements and this bozo is lobbing verbal grenades at the process.
I just think extra caution is warranted. Saying something that won't change anything just to say it doesn't strike me as very responsible. And Obama's certainly not focused on Afghanistan. He never has been, so that's no surprise.
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