Retired general: 'Why we lost' in Iraq, Afghanistan

This is nothing new if you've been reading me for the past, oh, eight years, but since often the messenger matters more than the message, here you go, from a retired Army Lt. General.

A 3-Star General Explains 'Why We Lost' In Iraq, Afghanistan

November 9, 2014 | NPR

URL: http://n.pr/1yYEegl

What we know about IS leads back to Iraq debacle

According to this report, the top three leaders of Islamic State are Iraqis: one from Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI); and two Sunni ex-generals from Saddam's army.

The leader and religious figurehead of IS, born Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri al-Samarrai, (aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, aka Caliph Ibrahim), was captured in 2004 or 2005 and released in 2009 under "unknown" circumstances.  (Smooth move!)

The two Sunni generals, we can surmise, almost certainly lost their jobs after Dubya's Coalition Provisional Authority issued an order on May 15, 2003 to dissolve the 250,000-man Iraqi army, a day after the order to implement "De-Ba'athification" of all public and government posts.

So it's still correct to blame Bush.

Here's What We Know About How The Islamic State Is Run

By Nick Robins-Early

September 27, 2014 | Huffington Post

URL: http://huff.to/YjQcnC

Watch 'Jaffa: The Orange's Clockwork' (2010)

This documentary by Israeli filmmaker Eyal Sivan is excellent and fair-minded.  I haven't been able to find the whole thing in English yet, only this shortened version. For my francophone friends, the entire film is on YouTube with French subtitles: http://youtu.be/gxTAxIPxeGM 

The film gives the lie to a lot of myths about Palestine, Zionism and the founding of the Israeli state, foremost that Palestine was a desert wasteland, "A land crying out to the West, 'Come, save me. Come, conquer me.'"  It's especially important now to remember real history, as Israel has killed more than 800 Palestinians and injured more than 5000, many of them civilians, in occupied Gaza in revenge for the murder of three Israelis.

Director's statement

Jaffa, The Orange’s Clockwork is a political essay unfolding the story of the invention and the visual history of the world’s wide famous citrus fruit originated in Palestine and known around the world as "Jaffa oranges". While the orange become the symbol of the Zionist enterprise and the state of Israel, for Palestinians it symbolises the lost of their homeland and its destruction. Through a careful reading of the visual representation of the brand, the film reflects on western phantasms related to the ‘Orient’ the ‘holy land’ and the State of Israel and unveils the untold story of what was ones a commune symbol and industry to Arabs and Jews in Palestine.

The oranges of Jaffa, the fruits, the orchards, the brand name and the city - that gave to the fruit its name, are the backdrop of the commune Jewish-Arab life in Palestine before the establishment of Israel, the colonial covetousness, the account of obliteration, nationalization, then repudiation in order to propose a joint historical narrative.

Watch it!

http://www.eyalsivan.info/index.php?p=fichefilm&id=10#&panel1-7

Ukrainian gov't: Crimeans may keep Ukrainian citizenship

This is a very smart move by Ukraine: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that all Ukrainian citizens in Crimea may keep their Ukrainian citizenship and their Ukrainian passports:

"So a Ukrainian citizen who receives a foreign nationality without applying for renunciation of citizenship of Ukraine or the loss of the citizenship of Ukraine can not be regarded as a legitimate reason for termination of the citizenship of Ukraine."

This leaves open the door for their reunification with Ukraine, or their "emigration" from Russian Crimea to the Ukrainian mainland. 

This also leaves open the possibility -- taking a page out of Russia's playbook -- at some point for Ukraine to assert the right to protect the safety of Ukrainian citizens in Crimea.

An interesting thing to watch: how many Crimeans will choose to revoke their Ukrainian citizenship? My prediction is that most Crimeans will keep their Ukrainian passports and hedge their bets.


Crimeans keep their Ukrainian citzenship
By Aleksandr Gundlah
March 19, 2014 | 15Minut

URL: http://15minut.org/article/krymchanam-sohranjat-ukrainskoe-grazhdanstvo-2014-03-19-22-45-04

CBC exclusive reportage from Crimea & Sevastopol

My friend is in these two videos from the Canadian Broadcasting Company in Crimea, Ukraine; I'm very proud of him:

"I'm not the kind of officer who could take an oath twice," the Ukrainian navy's commanding officer told the CBC crew.  Such bravery from a Ukrainian sailor stuck at harbor, hopelessly surrounded by Russian troops and snipers!

All this gives the lie to Russia's claim that these are Crimean "local self-defense forces."  No, these are trained and equipped Russian troops with a mission to occupy and overtake Crimea and all its Ukrainian military bases.  

My friend is safe now, thank goodness.  Glory to Ukraine!  

Motyl: Many Ukrainians expect Russia to attack mainland

Writes Motyl:

[E]xactly one week later, on Friday, February 28, that euphoria was replaced with the deepest of fears. Vladimir Putin's Russia invaded and occupied Crimea. That was bad enough. Far worse was yet to come. On Saturday, March 1, Putin claimed to have the right to "defend" "Russian citizens" anywhere in Ukraine, thereby giving himself carte blanche to invade any part of Ukraine he chooses. Which province would be next?

On Tuesday, March 4, our existential angst got worse. At a revealing press conference, Putin claimed he had the right to go to war with Ukraine in defense of "Ukrainian citizens." Putin also said if he made the decision to go to war, "women and children" would act as a shield for Russian troops.

Many Ukrainians in Ukraine now believe that a Russian invasion of mainland Ukraine is inevitable. If it happens, war will break out and thousands will die.

Crimea is set to secede in a bogus referendum on March 16. Putin's former economic adviser Andrei Illarionov, who resigned in protest after a bloody hostage crisis, claims Russian armies will march on Kiev.

Putin's ideological mentor, Aleksandr Dugin, insists that Russia's goals go beyond Ukraine into Europe -- a reunification of the Slavic peoples. Meanwhile, Russian troops and tanks are massing on Ukraine's borders. Terrified realists that we have become, we suspect the worst: that they will soon be attacking a country that dared say no to Putin.

The U.S. and NATO could stop Russia cold -- on the ground, air and sea. What nobody is saying but everybody is thinking is that any attempt to stop Putin's march into Ukraine could trigger a nuclear war that annihilates mankind.

Hopefully, Putin is just full of bluster, and in the coming days and weeks such fears will seem, in retrospect, silly and unfounded.  

Many Ukrainians expect war with Russia

By Alexander J. Motyl

March 14, 2014 | CNN

URL: http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/14/opinion/motyl-putin-war-ukraine/index.html?hpt=hp_t4

Vanden Heuvel: Afghanistan, Iraq...Syria?

Vanden Heuvel draws the parallels between Syria and Afghanistan-Iraq:

The lessons of those previous wars are particularly relevant here. Syria has, as Syria specialist Joshua Landis has argued, many parallels to Iraq. It is a nation rife with religious, sectarian and class divisions. A minority — Shiite in Syria — in alliance with urban Sunnis, Christians and other minorities, has used a dictatorship to rule over the Sunni majority. The uprising has quickly turned sectarian — in part because of the outside influences of Turkey and the Gulf monarchies who seek to weaken the Iranian-Shiite alliance.

Despite U.S. efforts to cobble together a united and more secular opposition, the rebels are divided, with Islamists — many espousing open allegiance to al-Qaeda — providing the fiercest fighters. The violence will not end when the brutal regime falls. Already chaos, criminality, local militias and warlords beset “liberated”areas.

There is also that pesky consideration, international law:

Nor does the United States have any legal basis for waging war on Syria. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad does not pose a terrorist or national security threat to the United States, nor a threat to international security. There is no United Nations resolution that can be stretched to provide even a transparent cover for intervention, as there was in Libya.

Finally, let's remember "taking out the bad guy" is the easy part:

The last thing the president should do is commit the United States militarily to the overthrow of the regime. As in Iraq, we can win that war, but we will surely lose in its violent aftermath — and we will bear responsibility for deepening the humanitarian disaster with our “humanitarian” intervention.

Diplomacy is better than military action in Syria

By Katrina vanden Heuvel

May 7, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/10m5WRx

Have historians been unfair to Dubya?

Prof. Stephen Knott argues that Dubya has been treated unfairly by historians making their Best & Worst Presidents lists.  (As if their lists matter to anybody, but let's forget that for now....)

There are two ways to evaluate the success of a U.S. president: by what the evaluator thinks a president did right or wrong; or by how effectively a president got what he wanted; furthermore, one could evaluate how enduring were the gains a president won.

By the first measure, many people, including many Republicans, think Bush was a failure. But partisanship, ideology and ego affect our judgment, so it's one of those things best left to argue over beers. By the second measure, however, I'd argue that Bush was pretty darn successful, unfortunately. And his "achievements" endure.

Why do I say "unfortunately"? We had a recent example. Last night, when noting the nation's reaction to the apprehension of the Boston bombers and their alleged Islamist beliefs, I posted: "It's still Dubya's America and we're just living in it... including President Obama."

That is, I meant that Dubya and his team (including his team at FOX News and Clear Channel) have been extremely successful in framing our view of Muslims, so successful that even President Obama seems prisoner to our prejudices.  The Left is silent while Obama is under constant pressure by the Right to link the entire religion of Islam to terrorism.

Here's the latest bulletin from the conservative GWOT Language Police: "The language of terror," by Charles Krauthammer.  You have to read through a lot of nothing to get to Krauthammer's point at the very end:

Obama has performed admirably during the Boston crisis, speaking both reassuringly and with determination. But he continues to be linguistically uneasy. His wavering over the word terrorism is telling, though in this case unimportant. The real test will come when we learn the motive for the attack.

As of this writing, we don’t know. It could be Islamist, white supremacist, anarchist, anything. What words will Obama use? It is a measure of the emptiness of Obama’s preferred description — “violent extremists” — that, even as we know nothing, it can already be applied to the Boston bomber(s). Which means, the designation is meaningless.

You see, it makes all the difference in the world that the Boston bombers' alleged motivation was Islamist beliefs, and that our President says so. Why? Well, it's obvious, isn't it? Because it's ammunition for those who want to categorize all Muslims, including legal U.S. residents and citizens, as suspected terrorists. There's no other reason for the Right to police this language issue so severely. 

And as George Orwell warned us, language controls our thoughts. Control our language, control our thoughts. That is just one "achievement" of the successful George W. Bush "imperial" presidency, but it's a mighty one.

How about some more?  Bush's Great War on Terra (GWOT) continues and even escalates: with drone attacks, G'itmo, sanctioned rendition and torture, domestic spying and Internet surveillance, prosecuting government whistle blowers, and assassinating U.S. citizens when they are overseas. Obama continues Bush's extra-constitutional practice of presidential signing statements. Bush's occupations of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq are inexorable; Obama cannot or will not get out of them. Deregulated Wall Street banks may still gamble, legally, with depositors' and taxpayers' free money and are now Too Bigger To Fail. Deregulated for-profit colleges that live on government-backed student loans still hold the majority of student debt, now at $1 trillion. The budget of Bush's Department of Homeland Security now rivals the Pentagon's. Bush's unfunded Medicare Advantage entitlement is still wildly popular even among seniors in the Tea Parties... yet to put Medicare's finances back in order requires cutting or reforming Medicare Advantage, giving Republicans the opportunity to accuse Democrats of "cutting Medicare." Clinton's federal assault-weapons ban was allowed to expire in 2004; meanwhile right-to-carry and concealed-carry laws were passed in most states with Bush's encouragement, even as mass shootings increased.  And speaking of guns, Obama ironically got blamed for Bush's "Fast and Furious" "gunwalking"/drug-interdiction program by the ATF. And finally, Bush's unaffordable tax cuts on the very wealthy are now sacrosanct even among Democrats who once fought them, even in the worst economic climate since the Great Depression, with the two aforementioned wars still on the nation's credit card, unpaid for.  

As a result of all this and more, Bush increased our national debt 91 percent ($5.9 trillion), and yet somehow escapes blame for it; meanwhile spineless Democrats are ready to apologize for Obama's deficits (totaling $4.9 trillion or a 41 percent increase over FY 2009) caused by Bush's Great Recession and two unfinished wars. For that political magic act, we are compelled to acknowledge that Dubya was a brilliant politician. Obama is a dunderhead by comparison.

I haven't read Knott's book, but based on its title, Rush to Judgment: George W. Bush, the War on Terror, and His Critics, it probably highlights Bush's achievements in fighting terrorism.  If that's so, then Knott has an excellent case to make that Bush got everything he wanted and more, i.e. he was pretty darn successful. Too bad for us. 

UPDATE (04.24.2013): Ralph Nader repeats a lot of what I've said in his op-ed: "Obama Is Comfortable With Bush's Inferno." 

UPDATE (04.26.2013):  Here's an acerbic take on Dubya's strategy of "Keep Quiet and Hope They Forget" by Alexandra Petri: "George W. Bush was the greatest president of all time, ever."  It's working.  Dumbo has outsmarted us again.  [Facepalm.]

George W. Bush is victim of a rush to judgment

By Stephen F. Knott

April 20, 2013 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/17y2whL

Wolfowitz still defends Iraq invasion, 10 years on

Wolfowitz's lame apologetica doesn't even merit a response. Just let it be entered into the record, 10 years later.

Do take note that Wolfowitz, the "brains" behind Dubya's foreign wars, is now a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. John "Yosemite Sam" Bolton, Fred Kagan and Richard "Black" Perle are taking cover there, too.  I guess AEI is where discredited neocons go to die.

Iraq War taught tough lessons, but world better off without Saddam

By Paul Wolfowitz

March 19, 2013 | FOX News

URL: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/03/19/iraq-war-taught-us-tough-lessons-but-world-is-better-off-without-saddam/#ixzz2O1qptst0

Israeli security chiefs may surprise you

"After retiring from this job, you become a bit of a leftist."  Hmm....

In "The Gatekeepers," Israeli Security Chiefs Say What US Leaders Can't

By Asawin Suebsaeng

February 22, 2013 | Mother Jones

"What's unnatural is the power you have to take three people, terrorists, and take their lives in an instant," says Yuval Diskin, the 12th director of the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, during the opening sequence of The Gatekeepers. His blunt testimony sets the grave and mournful tone that defines the rest of this illuminating and devastating film.

The Oscar-nominated documentary, directed by Israeli filmmaker Dror Moreh, uses interviews with all six living ex-directors of the Shin Bet to paint a stark portrait of the agency and how it figures into the Jewish state's past, present, and future. For those who haven't heard of this security service, here are a couple lines from my crib sheet: Imagine the FBI, only tremendously more efficient, brutal, and terrifying. Now, imagine if the war on terror were half a century old, and if we had drone strikes and black sites in Florida and Montana.

That's what the Shin Bet is like for Israelis.

It's a juggernaut of counterterrorism and intel gathering. Shin Bet directors answer directly to the prime minister. The agency's greatest blunder was their failure to protect Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli leader who came closest to making peace with the Palestinians, from being murdered by a right-wing Israeli terrorist.

"I didn't want any more live terrorists in court," explains Avraham Shalom, who led the organization from 1980 to 1986. "In the war against terror, forget about morality." He's talking about the agency doctrine of targeted assassination against Islamic militants. (For what it's worth, Shalom now looks like your average adorable grandpa in dark-red suspenders, and yes, he has blown up his fair share of people.)

It goes without saying that these men have street cred. None of them has anything to prove when it comes to battling Muslim extremism or waging war on violent anti-Semitism. Avraham Shalom was even part of the team that captured Adolf Eichmann and flew his Nazi ass back to Israel to stand trial in 1960. These are guys who know perhaps better than anybody else what it means to orchestrate the ruthless killing of jihadists and Hamas terrorists.

And yet not one of them could make it through a Senate confirmation hearing. In fact, the most fascinating thing about The Gatekeepers is that so much of what these hardened agency dons say about the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is completely interchangeable with what many American pundits and politicians might assail as anti-Semitic rhetoric.

Here are six examples of things said in the film that could get you pilloried in American politics:

1. "Talk to everyone, even if they answer rudely. So that includes even Ahmadinejad, [Islamic Jihad, Hamas], whoever. I'm always for it. In the State of Israel, it's too great a luxury not to speak with our enemies…Even if [the] response is insolent, I'm in favor of continuing. There is no alternative. It's in the nature of the professional intelligence man to talk to everyone. That's how you get to the bottom of things. I find out that he doesn't eat glass and he sees that I don't drink oil."—Avraham Shalom (1980-86), on negotiating with the enemy.

2. "We are making the lives of millions [of Palestinians] unbearable, into prolonged human suffering, [and] it kills me."—Carmi Gillon (1994-96).

3. "We've become cruel. To ourselves as well, but mainly to the occupied population." Our army has become "a brutal occupation force, similar to the Germans in World War II. Similar, not identical."—Shalom, who clarifies that he is referring to the Nazis' persecution of non-Jewish minorities.

4. "We don't realize that we face a frustrating situation in which we win every battle, but we lose the war."—Ami Ayalon (1996–2000), regarding the wisdom of Israel's counterterrorism measures.

5. "To them, I was the terrorist.… One man's terrorist is another man freedom fighter."—Yuval Diskin (2005-11), candidly discussing the very first time he considered his profession from a Palestinian perspective.

6. "We are taking very sure and measured steps to a point where the State of Israel will not be a democracy or a home for the Jewish people."—Ayalon

But the film's contribution to any political discussion on the topic goes way beyond its quotable shock value. It's the culmination of a personal saga for these six warriors, packaged in one raw, brilliantly paced film with stunning visuals. "After retiring from this job, you become a bit of a leftist," Yaakov Peri, who ran the Shin Bet during the First Intifada, says with a sad smirk. The narrative unfolds as a modern tragedy where the characters' career highs are forever marred by a sense that they've retired only to become Cassandras. And for all their tactical successes on the battlefield, they see an Israel poised to lose the war if it continues to give up on peace.

Check out the trailer below:

Obama must consider 'zero option' in Afghanistan

Excellent commentary by Michael Boyle. President Obama must seriously consider the "zero option" -- full withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan by 2014 -- for three reasons:

1)  U.S. troops are just targets for the Taliban. So far a sizable U.S. presence there hasn't been able to root them out; a smaller force won't do any better.

2)  Having a base with a small U.S. presence won't equal "influence" over Afghanistan or its government, despite what many Republicans and neocons believe.

3)  Keeping U.S. troops there as advisers/trainers gives Afghanistan's government a scapegoat when its military cannot perform, as well as fosters a "culture of dependency" in the Afghan military that has only 1 out of 23 brigades that are combat-ready.

Here's his upshot:

It is now time for the US to look seriously at the zero option and to develop plans for removing all combat troops, except for a small special operations force to target exclusively on the 100 or so surviving al-Qaida operatives remaining. However many Americans remain there, the war against the Taliban needs to be President Karzai's from 2014 onwards, and the consequences of failure should be owned by him.

After more than 2,156 US troops killed and 18,109 wounded (pdf) since 2001, and more than $590bn given in aid, it is time to call an end to America's war in Afghanistan. With such losses, it is hard to accept that the US war in Afghanistan will end without a decisive victory, but keeping substantial American troops present in the country indefinitely will confer no real political or strategic advantages – while risking death and injury to even more young Americans.

America's 'zero option': the only viable exit from this unwinnable Afghan war

By Michael Boyle

January 10, 2013 | Guardian

URL: http://gu.com/p/3d2bv

Back and forth on drones

I go back and forth on drones.  But I'm starting to go in favor.  Why?  Because it seems that today's armed Islamist militants (and they do exist, just not in the numbers some think) have a two-pronged strategy:

1) Seek "safe" haven in unstable countries (the irony is the more dangerous the country, the safer al Qaeda and other flag-less militants are there), and further destabilize these countries with their terrorist attacks;

2) Tempt the U.S. to put troops in these unstable countries so that the Islamist militants can take pot shots at them.

There are too many unstable countries these days; and the U.S. already has too few troops to cover two ongoing occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Anyway, putting boots on the ground is a losing strategy.  We know it, they know it.  When we come in, all they have to do is wait us out.  And occupations are damn expensive when austerity is in vogue.  

And so drones are one answer to our dilemma.  Drones aren't the only answer; nor should they be used willy-nilly; but I think it's right to keep on using them.

Look, countries that harbor or can't control the Islamist militants among them who operate with impunity -- like in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Somalia, etc. -- need to know that if they can't take care of free-ranging terrorist groups then then we will, in our own way.  For example, how many years has the U.S. begged Pakistan to do something about the Taliban, to no avail?  

Yes, I admit, drone strikes are a violation of other countries' sovereignty.  And even if our drones don't rile up the masses there, then they certainly tick off government officials in the country getting droned, because drones reveal they're incapable of stopping the U.S. from doing what it wants.  It's humiliating to them.  On the other hand, drones are a clear indication that we have no intention of occupying and ruling these countries; we just want to destroy the bad guys.  (Unfortunately we often kill a lot of innocent people in the process.)

So in this messy world we live in where the choices range between two poles -- do nothing; or invade and occupy -- drones are some kind of middle ground.  Are they morally and ethically OK?  Um, probably not.  But then most wars aren't.  

Kurt Volker's most disturbing point -- a question, really -- is what happens when countries like China, Iran and Russia start using drones how they see fit?  Will the U.S. have a moral or legal leg to stand on in opposing them?  I don't know.

Kurt Volker: The risks of relying on drones

By Kurt Volker

October 27, 2012 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/SHcw26

Is Obama too soft on Syria?

Do you think Syria will even come up in tomorrow night's Presidential campaign debate?  If Romney criticizes Obama, it can only be for being "too soft" on Syria and President Assad.  Knowing Romney, he'll probably just leave it at that: an accusation without any supporting facts.

It doesn't seem to me that Americans -- Republicans included -- are clamoring for a third war right now... and the cleanup, occupation, institution-building and development aid in Syria that would come with it (Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule).  

I don't even hear people besides John McCain and the neocons saying we should arm Syria's rebel militias.  Again, the memory of arming the Taliban in Afghanistan is pretty fresh.  And it would give Putin a green light to arm Assad.  Then we'd be fighting a proxy war with Russia, who has more skin in this game than we do.

Chickenhawks like Jackson Diehl, cooped up at their desks in DC, will have to wait a decade or so until Americans forget how hard it is to pick winners in a civil war, then occupy the country to make sure the winner does the "correct" things.

How Obama bungled the Syrian revolution

By Jackson Diehl

October 15, 2012 | Washington Post

URL: http://wapo.st/OBPZWe

War Nerd: Obama's a better C-in-C than W but a terrible cheerleader

Classic War Nerd.  Glad to see he's back.  

Did you know that the U.S. had no troops killed in action in Iraq in 2011? Zero.  None.  That's f-ing amazing.  As Gary put it: "Once the big US forces left, the Iraqis stopped attacking us. I mean completely."  

Kinda makes all those folks like, um, (cough-cough!), myself look pretty damn smart for saying the Iraqis didn't hate us for who we were or our freedom, they hated the open-ended U.S. occupation.  And it makes all those people who said they were just crazy Muslims look kind of dumb, doesn't it?  I mean, you can't be crazy violent Muslim one year and sane democrat the next.

Still, 'Bama can't get any love from W's erstwhile GWOT-lovers and troop-honorers. He's just too eerily calm and collected about his blood & guts.  And he never spikes the ball in the endzone, even when he nailed the biggest bearded baddy of them all.  He lets others do his bragging for him, like Crazy Old Joe repeating in semi-senile fashion, "GM is alive and bin Laden is dead."  Obama's steady nerves, quiet modesty and self-restraint may be admirable traits in a Clint Eastwood-type film hero, but these are terrible traits in a U.S. president.  

Concludes Gary:

War isn’t about “winning” wars, so much — the 2004 election proved that once and for all. It’s about having something to woof on behalf of, like the NFL squared. Bush was the worst warrior since George Villiers, but he was a pro at cheerleading and we reelected him. Obama’s been a big surprise as a C-in-C, a damn good, cool-headed master of assassins, which is what you need for counterinsurgency … but he’s worse than nothing as a cheerleader.

Obama's Wars: Good Fighter, Can’t Cheerlead Worth A Damn

By Gary Brecher

September 11, 2012 | NSFW Corp

URL:  http://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/war-nerd-obamas-wars

DOS 'whistleblower': Nation-building FAIL

More than a few State Dept. officers disagree with Van Buren, and personally distrust his motivations (write a provocative book at/near retirement and get rich and famous) instead of blowing the whistle internally and trying to change the system from within.

Myself, I have a problem with his "greedy contractors"/"corrupt bureaucrats" line.  First, contractors don't write the contracts, the government does.  They just bid on the work and then implement it.  Secondly, Van Buren presents no evidence of U.S. government corruption.  

If Van Buren meant corruption within the Iraqi and Afghan governments, then, well, duh.  We never should have expected to funnel $ billions through these nascent institutions and trust all the money to be well-spent or even accounted for.  But in fact, trying to spend a lot of money fast -- and this was a hell of a lot to spend on development, more than any nation had ever tried to spend before in such a short time -- no matter who was managing it, was bound to lead to waste, poor accounting, missed and moving targets, sloppy work, etc.  

Those disagreements aside, Van Buren's central points are true and bear repeating: 1) using development aid as a counter-insurgency tactic almost never works; and 2) in our arrogance and cultural blindness we have failed to understand that they don't want to be like us, they don't even want most of our stuff.  This is especially true in Afghanistan.

How not to reconstruct Iraq, Afghanistan - or the US

Why has the US spent so much money and time "so disastrously trying to rebuild occupied nations abroad"?

By Peter Van Buren

August 28, 2012 | Al Jazeera

URL:  http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/08/201282312156520461.html

Tom Engelhardt: It happens there, not here (Why they hate us)

It Couldn't Happen Here, It Does Happen There 

The Value of American -- and Afghan -- Lives 

By Tom Engelhardt

June 17, 2012 | TomDispatch

It was almost closing time when the siege began at a small Wells Fargo Bank branch in a suburb of San Diego, and it was a nightmare.  The three gunmen entered with the intent to rob, but as they herded the 18 customers and bank employees toward a back room, they were spotted by a pedestrian outside who promptly called 911.  Within minutes, police cars were pulling up, the bank was surrounded, and back-up was being called in from neighboring communities.  The gunmen promptly barricaded themselves inside with their hostages, including women and small children, and refused to let anyone leave.

The police called on the gunmen to surrender, but before negotiations could even begin, shots were fired from within the bank, wounding a police officer.  The events that followed -- now known to everyone, thanks to 24/7 news coverage -- shocked the nation.  Declaring the bank robbers "terrorist suspects," the police requested air support from the Pentagon and, soon after, an F-15 from Vandenberg Air Force Base dropped two GBU-38 bombs on the bank, leaving the building a pile of rubble.

All three gunmen died.  Initially, a Pentagon spokesman, who took over messaging from the local police, insisted that "the incident" had ended "successfully" and that all the dead were "suspected terrorists."  The Pentagon press office issued a statement on other casualties, noting only that, "while conducting a follow-on assessment, the security force discovered two women who had sustained non-life-threatening injuries.  The security force provided medical assistance and transported both women to a local medical facility for treatment."  It added that it was sending an "assessment team" to the site to investigate reports that others had died as well.

Of course, as Americans quickly learned, the dead actually included five women, seven children, and a visiting lawyer from Los Angeles.  The aftermath was covered in staggering detail.  Relatives of the dead besieged city hall, bitterly complaining about the attack and the deaths of their loved ones.  At a news conference the next morning, while scenes of rescuers digging in the rubble were still being flashed across the country, President Obama said: "Such acts are simply unacceptable.  They cannot be tolerated." In response to a question, he added, "Nothing can justify any airstrike which causes harm to the lives and property of civilians." 

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey immediately flew to San Diego to meet with family members of the dead and offer apologies.  Heads rolled in the local police department and in the Pentagon.  Congress called for hearings as well as a Justice Department investigation of possible criminality, and quickly passed a bill offering millions of dollars to the grieving relatives as "solace."  San Diego began raising money for a memorial to the group already dubbed the Wells Fargo 18.

One week later, at the exact moment of the bombing, church bells rang throughout the San Diego area and Congress observed a minute of silence in honor of the dead.

[...]

Army Lt. Col.: 'Simply telling the truth' about Afghanistan

It doesn't seem like Lt. Col. Davis's whistleblowing got much coverage in the U.S. media. I'm posting this late but better than never.

Truth, lies and Afghanistan

By Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis

February 2012 | Armed Forces Journal

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army's Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

My arrival in country in late 2010 marked the start of my fourth combat deployment, and my second in Afghanistan. A Regular Army officer in the Armor Branch, I served in Operation Desert Storm, in Afghanistan in 2005-06 and in Iraq in 2008-09. In the middle of my career, I spent eight years in the U.S. Army Reserve and held a number of civilian jobs — among them, legislative correspondent for defense and foreign affairs for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas.

As a representative for the Rapid Equipping Force, I set out to talk to our troops about their needs and their circumstances. Along the way, I conducted mounted and dismounted combat patrols, spending time with conventional and Special Forces troops. I interviewed or had conversations with more than 250 soldiers in the field, from the lowest-ranking 19-year-old private to division commanders and staff members at every echelon. I spoke at length with Afghan security officials, Afghan civilians and a few village elders.

I saw the incredible difficulties any military force would have to pacify even a single area of any of those provinces; I heard many stories of how insurgents controlled virtually every piece of land beyond eyeshot of a U.S. or International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) base.

I saw little to no evidence the local governments were able to provide for the basic needs of the people. Some of the Afghan civilians I talked with said the people didn't want to be connected to a predatory or incapable local government.

From time to time, I observed Afghan Security forces collude with the insurgency.

FROM BAD TO ABYSMAL

Much of what I saw during my deployment, let alone read or wrote in official reports, I can't talk about; the information remains classified. But I can say that such reports — mine and others' — serve to illuminate the gulf between conditions on the ground and official statements of progress.

And I can relate a few representative experiences, of the kind that I observed all over the country.

In January 2011, I made my first trip into the mountains of Kunar province near the Pakistan border to visit the troops of 1st Squadron, 32nd Cavalry. On a patrol to the northernmost U.S. position in eastern Afghanistan, we arrived at an Afghan National Police (ANP) station that had reported being attacked by the Taliban 2½ hours earlier.

Through the interpreter, I asked the police captain where the attack had originated, and he pointed to the side of a nearby mountain.

"What are your normal procedures in situations like these?" I asked. "Do you form up a squad and go after them? Do you periodically send out harassing patrols? What do you do?"

As the interpreter conveyed my questions, the captain's head wheeled around, looking first at the interpreter and turning to me with an incredulous expression. Then he laughed.

"No! We don't go after them," he said. "That would be dangerous!"

According to the cavalry troopers, the Afghan policemen rarely leave the cover of the checkpoints. In that part of the province, the Taliban literally run free.

In June, I was in the Zharay district of Kandahar province, returning to a base from a dismounted patrol. Gunshots were audible as the Taliban attacked a U.S. checkpoint about one mile away.

As I entered the unit's command post, the commander and his staff were watching a live video feed of the battle. Two ANP vehicles were blocking the main road leading to the site of the attack. The fire was coming from behind a haystack. We watched as two Afghan men emerged, mounted a motorcycle and began moving toward the Afghan policemen in their vehicles.

The U.S. commander turned around and told the Afghan radio operator to make sure the policemen halted the men. The radio operator shouted into the radio repeatedly, but got no answer.

On the screen, we watched as the two men slowly motored past the ANP vehicles. The policemen neither got out to stop the two men nor answered the radio — until the motorcycle was out of sight.

To a man, the U.S. officers in that unit told me they had nothing but contempt for the Afghan troops in their area — and that was before the above incident occurred.

In August, I went on a dismounted patrol with troops in the Panjwai district of Kandahar province. Several troops from the unit had recently been killed in action, one of whom was a very popular and experienced soldier. One of the unit's senior officers rhetorically asked me, "How do I look these men in the eye and ask them to go out day after day on these missions? What's harder: How do I look [my soldier's] wife in the eye when I get back and tell her that her husband died for something meaningful? How do I do that?"

One of the senior enlisted leaders added, "Guys are saying, 'I hope I live so I can at least get home to R&R leave before I get it,' or 'I hope I only lose a foot.' Sometimes they even say which limb it might be: 'Maybe it'll only be my left foot.' They don't have a lot of confidence that the leadership two levels up really understands what they're living here, what the situation really is."

On Sept. 11, the 10th anniversary of the infamous attack on the U.S., I visited another unit in Kunar province, this one near the town of Asmar. I talked with the local official who served as the cultural adviser to the U.S. commander. Here's how the conversation went:

Davis: "Here you have many units of the Afghan National Security Forces [ANSF]. Will they be able to hold out against the Taliban when U.S. troops leave this area?"

Adviser: "No. They are definitely not capable. Already all across this region [many elements of] the security forces have made deals with the Taliban. [The ANSF] won't shoot at the Taliban, and the Taliban won't shoot them.

"Also, when a Taliban member is arrested, he is soon released with no action taken against him. So when the Taliban returns [when the Americans leave after 2014], so too go the jobs, especially for everyone like me who has worked with the coalition.

"Recently, I got a cellphone call from a Talib who had captured a friend of mine. While I could hear, he began to beat him, telling me I'd better quit working for the Americans. I could hear my friend crying out in pain. [The Talib] said the next time they would kidnap my sons and do the same to them. Because of the direct threats, I've had to take my children out of school just to keep them safe.

"And last night, right on that mountain there [he pointed to a ridge overlooking the U.S. base, about 700 meters distant], a member of the ANP was murdered. The Taliban came and called him out, kidnapped him in front of his parents, and took him away and murdered him. He was a member of the ANP from another province and had come back to visit his parents. He was only 27 years old. The people are not safe anywhere."

That murder took place within view of the U.S. base, a post nominally responsible for the security of an area of hundreds of square kilometers. Imagine how insecure the population is beyond visual range. And yet that conversation was representative of what I saw in many regions of Afghanistan.

In all of the places I visited, the tactical situation was bad to abysmal. If the events I have described — and many, many more I could mention — had been in the first year of war, or even the third or fourth, one might be willing to believe that Afghanistan was just a hard fight, and we should stick it out. Yet these incidents all happened in the 10th year of war.

As the numbers depicting casualties and enemy violence indicate the absence of progress, so too did my observations of the tactical situation all over Afghanistan.

CREDIBILITY GAP

I'm hardly the only one who has noted the discrepancy between official statements and the truth on the ground.

A January 2011 report by the Afghan NGO Security Office noted that public statements made by U.S. and ISAF leaders at the end of 2010 were "sharply divergent from IMF, [international military forces, NGO-speak for ISAF] 'strategic communication' messages suggesting improvements. We encourage [nongovernment organization personnel] to recognize that no matter how authoritative the source of any such claim, messages of the nature are solely intended to influence American and European public opinion ahead of the withdrawal, and are not intended to offer an accurate portrayal of the situation for those who live and work here."

The following month, Anthony Cordesman, on behalf of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote that ISAF and the U.S. leadership failed to report accurately on the reality of the situation in Afghanistan.

"Since June 2010, the unclassified reporting the U.S. does provide has steadily shrunk in content, effectively 'spinning' the road to victory by eliminating content that illustrates the full scale of the challenges ahead," Cordesman wrote. "They also, however, were driven by political decisions to ignore or understate Taliban and insurgent gains from 2002 to 2009, to ignore the problems caused by weak and corrupt Afghan governance, to understate the risks posed by sanctuaries in Pakistan, and to 'spin' the value of tactical ISAF victories while ignoring the steady growth of Taliban influence and control."

How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding and behind an array of more than seven years of optimistic statements by U.S. senior leaders in Afghanistan? No one expects our leaders to always have a successful plan. But we do expect — and the men who do the living, fighting and dying deserve — to have our leaders tell us the truth about what's going on.

I first encountered senior-level equivocation during a 1997 division-level "experiment" that turned out to be far more setpiece than experiment. Over dinner at Fort Hood, Texas, Training and Doctrine Command leaders told me that the Advanced Warfighter Experiment (AWE) had shown that a "digital division" with fewer troops and more gear could be far more effective than current divisions. The next day, our congressional staff delegation observed the demonstration firsthand, and it didn't take long to realize there was little substance to the claims. Virtually no legitimate experimentation was actually conducted. All parameters were carefully scripted. All events had a preordained sequence and outcome. The AWE was simply an expensive show, couched in the language of scientific experimentation and presented in glowing press releases and public statements, intended to persuade Congress to fund the Army's preference. Citing the AWE's "results," Army leaders proceeded to eliminate one maneuver company per combat battalion. But the loss of fighting systems was never offset by a commensurate rise in killing capability.

A decade later, in the summer of 2007, I was assigned to the Future Combat Systems (FCS) organization at Fort Bliss, Texas. It didn't take long to discover that the same thing the Army had done with a single division at Fort Hood in 1997 was now being done on a significantly larger scale with FCS. Year after year, the congressionally mandated reports from the Government Accountability Office revealed significant problems and warned that the system was in danger of failing. Each year, the Army's senior leaders told members of Congress at hearings that GAO didn't really understand the full picture and that to the contrary, the program was on schedule, on budget, and headed for success. Ultimately, of course, the program was canceled, with little but spinoffs to show for $18 billion spent.

If Americans were able to compare the public statements many of our leaders have made with classified data, this credibility gulf would be immediately observable. Naturally, I am not authorized to divulge classified material to the public. But I am legally able to share it with members of Congress. I have accordingly provided a much fuller accounting in a classified report to several members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, senators and House members.

A nonclassified version is available at www.afghanreport.com. [Editor's note: At press time, Army public affairs had not yet ruled on whether Davis could post this longer version.]

TELL THE TRUTH

When it comes to deciding what matters are worth plunging our nation into war and which are not, our senior leaders owe it to the nation and to the uniformed members to be candid — graphically, if necessary — in telling them what's at stake and how expensive potential success is likely to be. U.S. citizens and their elected representatives can decide if the risk to blood and treasure is worth it.

Likewise when having to decide whether to continue a war, alter its aims or to close off a campaign that cannot be won at an acceptable price, our senior leaders have an obligation to tell Congress and American people the unvarnished truth and let the people decide what course of action to choose. That is the very essence of civilian control of the military. The American people deserve better than what they've gotten from their senior uniformed leaders over the last number of years. Simply telling the truth would be a good start.

U.S. export to Afghanistan: Multi-victim shooting rampages

It's a shame this had to happen at such a delicate time in Afghanistan, when emotions are still raw after the U.S. accidentally incinerated a few Korans at Bagram airbase near Kabul.

What Afghans need to understand is that, in America, Americans snap and go on shooting rampages all the time.  So it's nothing personal against them; it has nothing to do with their nationality or religion.  We Americans just tend to lose our s**t sometimes, grab a bunch of guns, and mow down lots of innocent people to blow off steam.  It's this thing we do.

You could even say we were treating them like we treat ourselves.  Hey, we're exporting American culture!  Although they'd probably refuse to take it that way, like, on the bright side I mean, because they're so surly and all lately.

Unfortunately, our cross-cultural dialogue has not yet reached the point where we can convey such simple, everyday realities to our distrustful Afghan brothers and sisters.  (Sigh).


American Soldier Massacres 16 Civilians In Afghanistan
March 11, 2012 | AP
URL:  http://www.nationalmemo.com/article/american-soldier-massacres-16-civilians-afghanistan

Dire results of a preemptive attack on Iran

You all remember Richard Clarke, right? He the guy from the Reagan and Bush Admin.'s who criticized the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He's now cautioning against war with Iran.

There could be many very bad consequences. But here's the real strategy behind a preemptive Israeli strike on Iran [emphasis mine]:

Israel can't do long-term, severe damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, so its chief purpose in bombing Iran would be to trigger Iranian retaliation and draw the U.S. into the war to defend Israel, and to finish off what Israel started.

Therefore, the U.S. cannot allow Israel to attack Iran unilaterally and preemptively, because as Israel's best ally the United States would get sucked into a war with Iran.

Alternatively, we could tell Israel and the rest of the world that Israel would be on its own if it attacked Iran without international support. But with the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., and American sentiment being the way it is, such a scenario is almost impossible to imagine.

What Will Happen to the US If Israel Attacks Iran?

By Brian Ross

March 5, 2012 | ABC News

President Obama is meeting with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel at the White House today, and will try to talk him out of an immediate strike on Iran's nuclear sites.

If Israel does decide to bomb Iran, however, what will it mean for the United States? According to former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke, Americans should brace for a painful impact. Within a week of the first Israeli attack, says Clarke, a worst case scenario would bring soaring gas prices, terror attacks in U.S. cities, worldwide cyberwar, dead and wounded U.S. sailors, and the real possibility of broad American military involvement.

WATCH An Interview with Richard Clarke: If Israel Attacks Iran

Gas Prices Could Double

According to U.S. government estimates, about 20 percent of the oil traded worldwide passes through the Persian Gulf, bordered by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. If Israel were to bomb Iran, oil prices would immediately go up. If Iran responded by attacking oil tankers going through the Persian Gulf, says Clarke, gasoline prices for U.S. consumers could double.

"You could see very quickly Iranian commandos and their small boats attacking tankers, attacking oil platforms," said Clarke. "You could see mines being laid in the Gulf."

The result, said Clarke, "would be a huge crisis in energy." President Obama would tap the U.S.'s strategic petroleum reserve, alleviating some of the price rise. The spike in prices "might not last long if the U.S. and its allies are able to take control of the Gulf," said Clarke. "But that could take more than a week and under some scenarios it could take almost a month."

Terror Threat Against Americans

If Israel were to bomb Iran, American officials fear there could be a new wave of terrorism directed by Tehran, especially if the U.S. gets pulled in to the conflict.

"If we, the United States, we're bombing Iran, then I think they'd certainly want to try to do something on our homeland because we were bombing their homeland," said Clarke.

Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah have already shown a willingness to act outside their own borders, both with deadly attacks on Jewish targets in Argentina in the 1990s and the apparent attempted hits on Israeli targets in a number of countries earlier this year.

"Both have strong inroads in Asia, Europe, and Latin America, where they could strike Israeli, Jewish, and U.S. targets," said Clarke.

Israeli embassies and consulates and Jewish places of worship in the U.S. have been put on alert.

The World's First International Cyberwar

An Israeli attack on Iran would likely set off the world's first international cyber war. Before striking, Israel will try to blind the air defenses of Iran and its neighbors with cyber warfare. And the U.S. might end up using capabilities it has kept secret until now.

"The United States has a very powerful ability to cause this sort of disruption to electric power grids, communications networks," said Clarke. "It hasn't done it because it doesn't like to expose its tricks as it's afraid once it does it, people will figure out how the United States does it. But in a war with Iran, they would be willing to run that risk."

Iran would also attempt to hit back. Said Clarke, "Iran also has a cyber command, which might try to retaliate by attacking U.S infrastructure such as the power grid, trains, airlines, refineries."

U.S. Navy Casualties in the Gulf

Should the U.S. become involved in the Israeli-Iran conflict militarily, says Clarke, it will be impossible to avoid American casualties.

"The Iranians have hundreds if not thousands of small boats, armed small boats, commando small boats, that will operate in the Gulf," said Clarke. "They can get in, they can swarm a U.S. destroyer. The Iranians now also have cruise missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles."

Clarke said there is a potential for the U.S. to sustain significant damage to a few ships and lose some sailors, just as it did during the war between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s. Two U.S. ships were hit during that conflict, with a loss of nearly 40 American lives.

The U.S. Enters the War

According to Clarke, Israel can't do long-term, severe damage to Iran's nuclear infrastructure, so its chief purpose in bombing Iran would be to trigger Iranian retaliation and draw the U.S. into the war to defend Israel, and to finish off what Israel started.

If Israel bombs Iran, Clarke says the cascade of events will lead to attacks on Israeli cities. "Advisors to Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak are saying that if Israel bombed Iran, the retaliation on Israel would be tolerable," said Clarke. "But if Hezbollah in Lebanon launched thousands of extended range, improved accuracy rockets on Israel, hundreds of Israelis would die. In such a small country, that would be devastating."

The casualties, in turn, would bring the inevitable call to Washington for help.

"You will very quickly see a phone call from Prime Minister Netanyahu to the President," said Clarke, "and he will say to him, 'Only the United States, Mr. President, can find and destroy these mobile missile launchers. Only you can save the lives of Israelis who are dying as I speak in our cities."

Clarke said that message would probably spur any U.S. president into action -- but especially one who is up for reelection within months. "It's likely to get a yes answer from the president," predicts Clarke, "and bring the U.S. into the war."