Learning Disabled

While more than 60,000 American troops are still fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq falls further into sectarian chaos, President Obama has decided to  militarily involve the United States in a civil war in Syria.  His rationale rests on Syrian civilian casualties and refugees, his longstanding statements that Assad “must go,” and the use of chemical weapons by Assad.  He is also seeking to offset the support to Assad provided by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah and bring a balance to the battlefield.

 President Obama has just stepped onto a slippery slope with a military and diplomatic quagmire at its bottom.  There is no evidence that his decision is part of a regional grand strategy  or that we have identified the ways and means that will achieve an (as yet unidentified) end.  This is a civil war and both sides have contributed to the 90,000 deaths and Mr. Assad retains the support of a significant portion of the Syrian population.  Further U.S. involvement morphs this civil war into a proxy war between the U.S., Europe, and Saudi Arabia on one side and Iran, Russia and Hezbollah on the other.  The latter group has significantly greater national interests in Syria than the former.  Furthermore, this alignment makes Russian support of U.S. efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program more unlikely and reduces Israel’s security.  Finally, arming the rebels has the effect of prolonging and  intensifying the fighting and makes a diplomatic or political solution less likely.

 President Obama and his advisors have stepped into this dark, slippery slope by ignoring both history and current reality.   Our history in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Egypt and Libya says that we have not been very successful bending outcomes to support our interests.  And the current reality is that we are a debtor nation reducing funding for Head Start and cancer research while now deciding to spend scarce dollars in support of an unstructured rebel force in Syria without any end state having been identified.  When reacting is substituted for strategic thinking learning suffers. 

News Gets Worse From Afghanistan

Just when the American people might have thought that they already had experienced the limits of poor judgment and arrogance in our endless and expensive occupation of Afghanistan, the bar was raised, according to the New York Times article “Karzai says CIA will keep cash coming” in Sunday’s Dispatch.

The American and Afghan governments admit that the CIA has given Afghan president Hamid Karzai bags of cash every month for years amounting to tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. All the while, the U.S. government has criticized the Afghan government for corruption. This is the same U.S. government that is struggling with a huge budget deficit and cutting funds to Head Start and cancer research.

The Afghan war already has claimed the lives of 2,138 American service members and cost $1 trillion. Must what remains of American moral authority join lives and treasure lost in Afghanistan, the “Graveyard of Empires”? In my professional judgment, there is no vital national security interest nor the prospect for a win in Afghanistan for the United States.

We should exit Afghanistan as soon as possible, thus conserving blood, treasure and moral authority.

Writers Didn’t Walk in Soldiers’ Boots

The following is an oped published in the Columbus Dispatch on February 9, 2013.

I respond to the three syndicated columns published (Gail Collins, Jan 25; Linda Chavez, Jan 26; and Kathleen Parker, Jan 29) after Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s announcement that he was lifting the rule barring women from serving in combat. 

I have reviewed the biographies of the three columnists and found no indication that any of them served in the military.

Nonetheless, each of them wrote unabashedly about the effect women in combat would have on unit cohesion, readiness and combat effectiveness.

This is the intellectual equivalent of prostitutes receiving technical advice from nuns.  It also reflects a reality that most Americans view the military in general and the way it is manned in particular through a lens of fear, apathy, ignorance and guilt. 

American women have served in combat since the Civil War. The fact that most women do not have the upper body strength or endurance of most men is not a sufficient reason to deny all women the opportunity to serve in combat, if they meet standards and volunteer.

Second, women’s career advancement in the military is limited by the fact that they are excluded from the combat arms.  Third, women serve with distinction in combat-support and combat-service-support functions today and the pregnancy red  herring raised by the writers is not an issue that precludes their service in these critical functions; there is no reason to believe it will be more or less an issue in the combat arms.

Finally, women make up 14 percent of our military today.  In 1973 when the draft ended, it was 2 percent.

Without the participation of women, the all-volunteer-force concept is dead. Women deserve the equality of opportunity that comes from eliminating the combat-exclusion rule.

Panetta’s announcement only moves the issue from the theoretical to the operational.  In the meantime, we may be wise to let informed professionals frame the issues and propose a way forward rather than have uninformed dilettantes add confusion and hyperbole.

A Great Choice

I am not particularly big on making predictions but I will predict that Chuck Hagel will go down in history as one of the best Secretaries of Defense of modern times.  He has the right mix of confidence, experience, intellect, and commitment to tackle the tough issues facing the Pentagon.  Principal among those issues is reducing military spending, withdrawing from Afghanistan, reducing the size of the force, and creating administrative discipline in the military bureaucracy.  He will not suffer fools and will not be intimidated or politically undercut by the general and flag officer priesthood of the Pentagon and he will give the Commander in Chief honest advice....whether he wants it or not.  The fact that he is a twice wounded enlisted veteran of the Vietnam war gives him credibility with the troops that few of his "chicken hawk"detractors can match.  If he is confirmed there will be exciting times at the five sided Puzzle Palace across the Potomac.

Where the money goes?

As most Americans watch the broadly reported on dealing with the "fiscal cliff" and debt ceiling issues a less widely reported event occurred. The Department of Defense quietly notified Congress this month that it had "reimbursed" Pakistan nearly $700 million in an effort to "normalize" support for the Pakistani military. This payment is in addition to approximately $2 billion given to Pakistan annually for security assistance.

You may recall that there was a diplomatic breakthrough in July which reportedly caused the Pakistan government to reopen suppy lines into Afganistan after they closed these routes in November 2011 in response to a US air attack which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. The US was then forced to use much longer and more expensive supply routes to support Afgan operations. In fact, since July, the Pakistani supply routes have been restricted by the Pakistanis to only about 25% of their pre November 2011 through put rates thus creating significant ongoing expense to the US despite the "diplomatic breakthrough". Rerouting supplies has cost the US an estimated $70-100 million per month because our "ally", Pakistan, has closed the routes through their country. Even when we do use the route through Pakistan we pay a toll of $250 per truck to the Pakistan government. Sustaining Afgan operations requires about 100 trucks per day.....$25,000 per day,,,,$9 million per year.

Perhaps President Obama and Speaker Boehner should look to the Afgan/Pakistan border to find about $3 billion in help to deal with the "fiscal cliff".

Progress?

This week theObama administration delivered to Congress its "Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afganistan" as required twice per year. The report covers the period 1 April through 30 September. It documents a stunning lack of progress. Only one of the Afgan army's 23 brigades is capable of operating independently wthout air or other military support from the United States or other NATO partners. Violence in Afganistan is higher than it was before the 2010 surge of American forces, the Taliban remains resiliant, and Afgan security forces' attacks on their US "partners" (green on blue attacks) remain a problem (there have been 37 in 2012 compared to 2 in 2007).


The Afgan government, the report states, suffers from "widespread corruption, limited human capacity, lack of access to rural areasdue to a lack of security, a lack of coordination between the central government and the Afgan provinces and districts, and an uneven distribution of power among the judicial, legislative, and executive branches." Afgan president Karzi recently blamed the United States for much of the corruption.

General John R. Allen, the senior US commander in Afganistan, is expected to recommend soon that US troop levels in Afganistan remain at 68,000 through the "fighting season" next fall to allow Afgan forces to strengthen before the US withdrawl currently scheduled for the end of 2014. After eleven years of US commitment, 2,146 US servicemembers lives, and almost three quarters of a trillion US taxpayer dollars, a reasonable question might be "What will be gained between now and the end of 2014, and at what cost?" Is tomorrow too late to leave?

Underreported, Troubling, and Grim

This week combat deaths suffered by American servicemembers in Afganistan passed the 2,000 mark.  In my opinion this is an underreported event that reflects the estrangement of 99% of Americans who have no involvement in American military affairs or national security.  Over the past few weeks I have conducted an informal poll asking people randomly how many deaths the US military has suffered in Afganistan....fewer than 10% of the respondents could get a correct answer within plus or minus 10%....troubling, I think so.

     The story is made grim by the fact that many of the dead US servicemembers were killed in cold blood by the very Afgan soldiers and police they are supporting and training.  NATO even has a name for these killings...."green on blue" killings.  Last year there were 21 such attacks in which 35 were killed.  Already this year 24 such attacks have occured with 28 killed.  NATO has not reported the number wounded in such attacks.

     Perhaps more widely reporting these troubling and grim statistics and recognizing that there are loved ones left behind would cause more Americans to ask why we are still in Afganistan, who will be the last US soldier to die there, and why he or she died there.