The 19 True Things Generals Can't Say About Afghanistan

[PanzerJaeger]

Yes, I think we've all heard the 'we took our eye off the ball' meme ad nauseam at this point, but is there any solid evidence to support the notion that it made any difference? Usually when we say something 'doomed' something else, there is a solid historical line from A to B. The idea seems to make sense if you don't really think about it, but I've always had a hard time connecting the dots on this one.

It seems to me that the factors working against the coalition (mainly internal and regional politics) would persist regardless of what happened in Iraq. Would a suitable Pashtun leader have emerged if we didn't intervene in Iraq? Would Pakistan have suddenly decided to be an honest broker?

I'm just not sure that pouring more resources into the country in 2003 would have altered the situation in any meaningful way, especially when both the Soviet experience and our contemporary situation are examined. As for good will, how much did the West really garner in 'Operation Collateral Damage', err, I mean the initial 2001 air campaign? And how much effect did the Iraqi invasion really have on the opinion of your average Afghani? Did he suddenly shift from feeling liberated to oppressed because of what was happening in Baghdad?

It just seems like a simple excuse to explain away a complex, and ultimately predestined, failure.

[Major Robert Dump]

Then allow me top add some perspective, PJ. Afghanistan turned out not to be scorched earth, kill-them-all efforts in the long run. We uprooted the Taliban, and the mission because a mission of holding ground and rebuilding. To accomplish such a mission, you need boots on the ground, financial micromanagement and massive humint.

From 2003 until the around 2007, the US presence in Afghanistan consisted of combat missions peppered with an occasional goodwill mission. Intel we got or the locals gave us resulted in raids or bombings. Then we went back to the FOB. Keep in mind, this was all well before COIN. The mission had COIN overtones all along, but there was no specific guidance.

In 2004 in Afghanistan, if a vehicle came within 100 meters of your convoy, you obliterated it. In 2005, if a convoy was going through a town, the whole town was cordoned. In 2006, a serious lack of understanding of the culture existed and US forces were acting on bad info fed to them by angry business competitors and family fueds. In 2007 If a vehicle did not move out of your way, you ran it off the road. The partnership between the Afghan police/military consisted of giving them money and resources and scant joint operations. IF an IED blew up the left side of your convoy, you returned fire to the left and shot anyone holding a cell phone. These were the ROE well into 2007. ROE like this results from a force that has its kill-them-all mission mixed up with its rebuilding mission. ROE like this makes the people hate the occupying force. ROE like this results from people living on FOBS and only going off base to kill. ROE like this exists because a massive amount of resources, both human and material, were used up on Bush's pre-emptive war.

If you want actual stats and graphs and pie charts, I am afraid I cannot provide those. There is, I suppose, no "proof" that mopney meant for Afghanistan went to Iraq.

However, and I do mean HOWEVER, because things in Afghanistan were considered "under control", despite top CIA brass begging the administration to do more, more resources were not sent to Afghanistan. Because Afghanistan was under control, the Taliban was able to seize on huge bumper crops of opiates and an almost unfestered period to regroup in 2005-2007. Because Afghanistan was "under control", all of the things were are doing now in terms of rebuilding were the no-brainer from the start, but we did not do it. The first commercial tv/radio station did not pop up outside of Kabul until 2008. As of 2006, we had paved less than 500 miles of roads. Companies were not putting up phone rural towers until 2008. We didnt get our first rural solar energy plant until 2009. The big push to get girls into school did not come until 2007.

So yeah, there may be no proof. But all these things that did not come until after 2007 are a no-brainer now for shaping a country, and they were a no-brainer then. Add that to battle fatigued soldiers, "lessons learned" in Iraq being misapplied to Afghanistan and Pakistan looting our convoys regulalry until this year (they still loot them, we just don't put anything on them) then, yeah, I would say that that other war, ya know the pre-emptive one, that cost 10x more than this one, distracted from the task at hand in Afghanistan, a task that was and still is far more honorable than ousting a dictator in one of the most economically stable and sectarian countries in the middle east.

Edit: That came off as kind of disjointed. So let me clarify:
It took us damn near 8 years to figure things out here that would have been obvious from the start were we not turtling. To many of us these things were obvious. And these issues were brought up with the administration over and over again. Which resulted in us simply turtling even more for our safety because a real solution could not be implemented due to lack of resources. We had the troops to put more on the ground in Afghanistan, thanks to the 9/11 enlistment surge, but the vast majority of those went to Iraq. Had we not been focused on Iraq, perhaps it would have been more clear that things here were, in fact, not "under control" and those troops would have come here. Or perhaps it was clear, and the White House simply did not care.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Edit: That came off as kind of disjointed. So let me clarify:
It took us damn near 8 years to figure things out here that would have been obvious from the start were we not turtling. To many of us these things were obvious. And these issues were brought up with the administration over and over again. Which resulted in us simply turtling even more for our safety because a real solution could not be implemented due to lack of resources. We had the troops to put more on the ground in Afghanistan, thanks to the 9/11 enlistment surge, but the vast majority of those went to Iraq. Had we not been focused on Iraq, perhaps it would have been more clear that things here were, in fact, not "under control" and those troops would have come here. Or perhaps it was clear, and the White House simply did not care.

So should we stay or should we go?

[Major Robert Dump]

We should stay. However, certain things must change. A Karzai fate not unlike is broter's would be a start, the Kuchi Nomad situation needs to be addressed, atrocities committed amongst the various ethnic groups prior to the US invasion (yeah, yeah, the critics like to think it was all peaches and brandy before we came) needs to be addressed, such as the slaughters of the Uzbeks and the HAzarras, and the viullage raids that the Taliban and NA did to one another on frontline towns, where they raped and/or stole all the women and chidlren. People need to learn to read, people need to be exposed to the outside world. They want the previous two things I mentioned, but you would not think this from the Afghan Government mouthpieces because the governments majority are old men from the old world who don't want their little Islamofascist frat party disrupted, so they spin tales of educated women turning to whoredom and educated men moving to gtreener pastures, to scare all the old people. The youngsters here don't buy it.

Also, mark my word, KArzai's elimination of private security companies will end in disaster because hordes of NGOs will pull out and take all their charity funds with them. The ANA/ASP/AUP/and ASG will not be able to proivide adequate security to the foregn aid agencies, not to mention the insurance premiums will skyrocket. This is not a wholesale indictment of all the Afghan forces, but one can easily thingk of 1000 reasons why one would want, say, A bonded German security firm escorting your doctors and engineers over a pack of illiterate guys with submachine guns.

And to further implement my point that resources were divertecd to Iraq that could have been put to good use in Afghanistan, consider this:

The "Surge" and COIN were developed for Iraq, despite Afghanistan being the far older war.

[gaelic cowboy]

Yes, I think we've all heard the 'we took our eye off the ball' meme ad nauseam at this point, but is there any solid evidence to support the notion that it made any difference? Usually when we say something 'doomed' something else, there is a solid historical line from A to B. The idea seems to make sense if you don't really think about it, but I've always had a hard time connecting the dots on this one.

It seems to me that the factors working against the coalition (mainly internal and regional politics) would persist regardless of what happened in Iraq. Would a suitable Pashtun leader have emerged if we didn't intervene in Iraq? Would Pakistan have suddenly decided to be an honest broker?

I'm just not sure that pouring more resources into the country in 2003 would have altered the situation in any meaningful way, especially when both the Soviet experience and our contemporary situation are examined. As for good will, how much did the West really garner in 'Operation Collateral Damage', err, I mean the initial 2001 air campaign? And how much effect did the Iraqi invasion really have on the opinion of your average Afghani? Did he suddenly shift from feeling liberated to oppressed because of what was happening in Baghdad?

It just seems like a simple excuse to explain away a complex, and ultimately predestined, failure.

You have the testimony of your only special forces and generals about how Bin Laden and the Taliban were let escape from Tora Bora due to basically lack of resources.

If you had a caught them then you could have declared victory and drew down your forces at a time when the Afghan insurgency had not ramped up yet.

[Papewaio]

I've seen stats showing the US effort in Afghanistan is over 100x the GDP of Afghanistan.

The economy is the US effort. It has to be causing all sorts of unintentional consequences.

Outsourcing might be fine in the short term but in the long term it can damage any brand if not tightly controlled. With the Afghan economy so small in comparison to the US military it doesn't take much to cause problems.

This is the same situation in one employer towns. Everyone is beholden to the primary economy even if it means stunting the secondary economy. Unfortunately in this scenario the secondary economy isn't a corner store but the entire Afghanistan economy.

Corruption is easy when controls are removed, things are done in haste and money is free flowing.

[PanzerJaeger]

MRD, thanks for the perspective. It would be foolish to argue with someone with your specific hands-on knowledge and skill set, so I won't. I just can't help but think that 100+ thousand soldiers in 2003 would be doing pretty much what 100+ thousand soldiers are doing today - winning hard fought but essentially pyrrhic victories. And considering the soviet experience with extensive infrastructure investments, I'm not sure more development would have changed the fundamental issues working against the coalition. We can give them security, resources, development, and elections, but, as has already been said, their leaders have to want what we're selling - and representative democracy is a hard sell to people who are used to lording over their own private armies. Also, it is my understanding that COIN was developed for Iraq because the Iraqi insurgency grew in scope and intensity before the Afghani one did. The surge was developed in 2006 and announced in 2007, just as violence began to flare up in Afghanistan.

You have the testimony of your only special forces and generals about how Bin Laden and the Taliban were let escape from Tora Bora due to basically lack of resources.

If you had a caught them then you could have declared victory and drew down your forces at a time when the Afghan insurgency had not ramped up yet.

The battle at Tora Bora took place in December of 2001, iirc. The invasion of Iraq commenced in March of 2003.

[gaelic cowboy]

The battle at Tora Bora took place in December of 2001, iirc. The invasion of Iraq commenced in March of 2003.

Irrelevant you asked if lack of resources hampered the effort obviously they have on occasion.

[PanzerJaeger]

Irrelevant you asked if lack of resources hampered the effort obviously they have on occasion.

Umm, not irrelevant as the discussion was about resources diverted to Iraq and whether they could have made a difference in Afghanistan...

[gaelic cowboy]

Umm, not irrelevant as the discussion was about resources diverted to Iraq and whether they could have made a difference in Afghanistan...

So when there was no Iraq they had problems with resources, but when Iraq was on the problems went away