On the Front Lines in Afghanistan
As the Iraq conflict winds down, the war in Afghanistan is, in many ways, just getting started. PJM presents the first in a series of exclusive reports from Michael Yon — our 21st-century "Ernie Pyle."
The hard work is especially difficult when our troops are spread perilously thin. Over the last nearly two weeks I’ve spent time with teams whose nearest ground support is too far away, and too small anyway, to help them when they get into serious trouble, which happens all the time. Some of these groups are too far out for helicopters to reach within any reasonable amount of time, and so their only choice often is “CAS,” or Close Air Support: jets with bombs. Sadly, despite the extreme precautions I have seen our people taking in Iraq and now Afghanistan, we are bound to make some mistakes, which the enemy exploits to full potential. In fact, there are reports that I believe credible that the enemy is actively trying to bait us into bombing innocent people. Such is the savagery of the Taliban and associated armed opposition groups (AOGs).
Few Afghans can tell the difference in uniform or equipment between Germans, Americans, Brits or Estonians or any of the other dozens of nations here. And similarities in vehicles and equipment can cause confusion among U.S. and Canadian forces, themselves. So we can’t really expect illiterate, Afghan civilians to tell the difference between an American and a French jet at midnight. But you know the result: when bombs or bullets fly off in the wrong direction, which inevitably happens in a hot war, when there is an occasional overuse of force, it gets blamed on Americans — or the “U.S. led coalition” — with the implication that the U.S. engineered the error. This is partly a function of the expert propaganda machine that the Taliban and its fundamentalist allies bring to bear — and, of course, of a world media eager to exploit such stories.
For our part and to the credit of our leadership, the U.S. is reluctant to publicly correct the record, since finger-pointing can only cause friction in the coalition. At a moment when Afghan policy is hanging in the balance, with a new Administration thinking about what they ought to do to move toward stability, we walk a tightrope between offending our allies by criticizing their actual shortcomings — and the even more important problem of overstepping very sensitive boundaries in Afghanistan. If we are going to be able to finish the job we started, we can’t afford to create problems for the Karzai government.
Rules of Engagement, discipline, training, and moral boundaries vary drastically between nations. Sophisticated readers should know that “U.S. led” does not necessarily mean that an American called in the target, or had anything to do in dropping the bomb. But I will say that a small American team told me recently that it was a French jet who came to their aid during an ambush, and expertly dropped a bomb straight onto a Taliban position.
Antique British WB-17 bomber flies over Afghan skies. The WB-17 is operated by NASA and has been used for collecting cosmic dust from extremely high altitudes. It seems doubtful that NASA came all the way to Afghanistan to collect cosmic dust, but this would be an interesting region to search for traces of nuclear materials, perhaps.
(click to enlarge)
Soldiers and their humor: dumb signs all over Iraq and Afghanistan are always good for a chuckle.
Please stay tuned: I’ll be in Afghanistan during most of 2009, with occasional trips to countries like Iraq. Updates can be found here at Pajamas Media.
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Michael Yon, author of Moment of Truth in Iraq: How a New 'Greatest Generation' of American Soldiers Is Turning Defeat and Disaster into Victory and Hope, spent more time embedded with U.S. and British combat troops in Iraq than any other correspondent. Michael Yon has changed his focus to Afghanistan.
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26 Comments
1. rh1303:I think you might actually mean a WB-57 (from the Canberra). NASA/JSC have two, 926 and 928.
Dec 8, 2008 - 3:46 am 2. Typewriter King:“Some of these groups are too far out for helicopters to reach within any reasonable amount of time…”
The Marines developed the Osprey for some purpose, besides moving VIPs around for pre-election photo ops.
“So we can’t really expect illiterate, Afghan civilians to tell the difference between an American and a French jet at midnight.”
Yeah, growing up seeing all the clearly-marked UN convoys around the world, I always wondered how often the actions of the UN became attributed to the US of A over the years, not just from the fully illiterate, but those that weren’t native to the Latin alphabet.
Dec 8, 2008 - 4:09 am 3. David Thomson:Will Barack Obama be persistent in fighting our enemies in Afghanistan? We should not forget that the jury is still out whether the president-elect is a self hating America. In his heart of hearts, does he believe these thugs are legitimately angry because of our alleged past misdeeds? Is Obama another Winston Churchill—or simply another Neville Chamberlain? Well, we are going find out soon enough.
Dec 8, 2008 - 7:41 am 4. Kirk Petersen:Obama has differentiated between Iraq and Afghanistan, saying that the war we should be focusing on is in Afghanistan. He clearly has moderated his views toward withdrawal from Iraq, and I doubt he will want to be the president who snatches defeat from the jaws of victory there. I doubt even more strongly that he will abandon Afghanistan after raising the stakes by focusing on it.
Personnel is policy, and Obama is retaining the Secretary of Defense who oversaw the turnaround in Iraq. I still would prefer John McCain as commander in chief, but I’m much less worried about Obama than I once was.
Dec 8, 2008 - 8:19 am 5. veracious:I believe we need to take the WOT to the enemy, but I’ve serious military doubts about supplying troops through Pakistan or the alternative routes.
The Taliban burned 160 vehicles and tons of military supplies over the weekend. The mil. representative said it was insignifcant? How many hundreds of millions in loss are required before supply line issues are _serious_? Are these issues diminishing or growing at an alarming rate?
Having studied and simulated nearly every kind of warefare, thousands of times, I’d say the cost of supplying Afghanistan is very high & there is no good solution forth-coming. There is clearly blurred vision in a government which pretends it’s okay to fight a war in one country, while all supplies for that war, must pass thru the enemies territory; Pakistan is their home base! That’s the very definition of being surrounded, duh?
Dec 8, 2008 - 8:59 am 6. Kirk Petersen:So veracious, what do you suggest? Withdrawal from Afghanistan?
Dec 8, 2008 - 10:01 am 7. AOracle:The RB/WB-57F has been flying the skies over Afghanistan for over 40 years now, under the aegis of many different agencies that do, or do not, exist.
Dec 8, 2008 - 10:12 am 8. cedarford:Veracious – Having studied and simulated nearly every kind of warefare, thousands of times, I’d say the cost of supplying Afghanistan is very high & there is no good solution forth-coming.
There is a solution, but one the Neocons bent on punishing the Bear and “liberating” all the noble freedom-lovers on Russia’s doorstep and busy starting their own little civil wars would object to. If we think Afghanistan is more important than Bear-baiting, then we need to do a little more Putin butt-schmootching than the Right Wingers currently think they can stomach.
That would give us good, reliable, inexpensive logistics into Afghanistan. I think that the Pakistan route is becoming more and more problematic each week.
Dec 8, 2008 - 10:33 am 9. Yawn:Well, there is that method. Or we could let India blast Pakistan into little bitty pieces for us. Actually, that is something I don’t really think anyone wants (including me). We could for once hold Pakistan accountible for what goes on in its territory and make them clean this place up. It would not be easy, or pleasant, but it can be done. Maybe we could help by getting the press to lay off while they cave some heads in. “Fixing” this part of the world will not be done by talking, it will be done in the best traditions of the old British Empire by marching into some nasty out of the way hellhole and killing lots of people to make your point. Poltically correct? Not by a long shot. Effective? If history is any guide for this part of the world, yes.
Some people need killing, and there are a whole lot of them right in that area.
Dec 8, 2008 - 11:30 am 10. Saint Patton:then we need to do a little more Putin butt-schmootching than the Right Wingers currently think they can stomach.
And of course the Left Wingers would never object to allying ourselves with a dictator like Putin. No no no, they would never hang that over anyone’s head until the end of time as they have done with every other pseudo-ally we have had in the past.
But hey, this is Obama’s playing field now, we get the chance to see him work his magic and find instant solutions and heal the world. Good luck.
Dec 8, 2008 - 11:31 am 11. Trent Telenko:Michael,
You are making the same mistake that Bill Roggio did when he wrote this:
>The United States is now faced with an awful
>truth. Pakistan is both an ally and an enemy.
>The attacks in Mumbai are only the latest
>demonstration of the tactics the ISI is willing
>to sponsor in its quest for power in the
>subcontinent and beyond. We should be mindful
>that ISI-sponsored terrorism is a central
>component of our enemies’ worldwide designs. It
>should not come as a surprise if someday we
>find ISI-backed terrorists laying siege to New
>York or Washington, just as they lately brought
>carnage to Mumbai.
The key issue at hand is that Pakistan, as it exists today, is what we fear Iran will become — a nuclear armed, terrorist supporting, rogue, failed state.
We have allies inside that failed state dealing with the Islamist factions, but often times we cannot tell the Islamists from the non-Islamist because both our allies and the Islamists factions inside the Pakistani state are Pakistani nationalists one and all.
When it comes to Indian terrorism, there are indistinguishable.
There is no one there who can enforce peace over all the Pakistani factions, and turn ISI’s Islamist terrorists off, because anti-Indian hate is the only thing that can rally popular support for the Pakistani State. As a result, the Islamist factions inside the Pakistani state have more deniability for terrorist operations than the Mullah’s of Iran.
To be blunt, the Pakistanis are playing a game of “Moderate Iranian Mullah” with us.
Whatever their colorings, the members of the Pakistani state — civilian or military — are Pakistani nationalists. The only thing that unites the Pakistani people behind the state in any meaningful way is war with India. Every faction of the Pakistani state will use that card to stay in power domestically, whatever they are saying to the West.
They will use our assistance from outside to count coup on other Pakistani state factions, but they all will lie to any and all outsiders about war and terrorism with India. They need it to much to maintain the Pakistani state in existence.
This takes us to another harsh geo-political reality. The best defense against nation-state sponsored terrorist attacks is preemption. Eliminate terrorist bases and state support by eliminating the supporting governments.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened because America had the economy and the political will to both forge nuclear weapons and to use them to eliminate the threat. All it took was a Pearl Harbor to fatally enraging the American people.
Our Islamic terrorist foes in Pakistan are seeking to provide the Indian people with that same motivation to eliminate the threat a’la “Pakistan Delenda Est.”
And there is nothing we can do to stop this.
Dec 8, 2008 - 11:44 am 12. trashhauler:cedarford wrote: “If we think Afghanistan is more important than Bear-baiting, then we need to do a little more Putin butt-schmootching than the Right Wingers currently think they can stomach.
That would give us good, reliable, inexpensive logistics into Afghanistan.”
__________________
It would be neither reliable nor inexpensive, though it might be necessary. One doesn’t have to be a neocon to dislike the idea of being beholden to Putin. Then too, some folks are more comfortable with butt-smooching than others. Some even believe it can become a habit.
Dec 8, 2008 - 12:13 pm 13. Myno:Trent,
Dec 8, 2008 - 5:07 pm 14. trashhauler:You raise intriguing points. I invite you to extend your analysis. If the Pakistani Islamic terrorists succeed in getting India to nuke (a portion of) their homeland, how do you feel they would see that as being to their advantage?
According to your missive, all parties in Pakistan would be expected to rally together against India’s nuke attack. One would expect the present ruling party in Pakistan to suffer the usual internal blame for being in charge at the time of the disaster, which would open opportunities for their competition, including the terrorists. But your scenario goes farther than that…
You draw the connection to the WWII nuking of Japan, which would seem to indicate you expect India would control Pakistan’s territory after the nuke attack. I suppose the terrorists would appreciate that, as it would put them in the front line of resistance to the Indian army occupiers and/or their Pakistani puppets. And the nukes would have been aimed at cities and bases far away from the tribal areas that the terrorists control, perhaps allowing them to wrest control away from the occupiers.
Is this the line you are thinking along?
“Our Islamic terrorist foes in Pakistan are seeking to provide the Indian people with that same motivation to eliminate the threat a’la ‘Pakistan Delenda Est.’”
______________
Trent, you might contemplate what the name “Hindu Kush” translates into: Killer of Hindus.
Dec 8, 2008 - 6:44 pm 15. CDN in AFG:The war in Afghanistan is “just getting started” is it? Maybe for the American reading public and some American writers it is, but Canada has been holding the line in Kandahar Province since 2006. Canadian Army operations there prevented the fall of Kandahar City, thwarted the collapse of the Afghan provincial government, and saved Britain’s ass over in Helmand. Canadian SOF have also racked up an impressive list of eliminated enemy leadership. Just getting started? Welcome to the fight….
Dec 9, 2008 - 5:14 am 16. Trent Telenko:Myno,
It is not in the interests of the power factions competing for control of the Pakistani state to give terrorists a nuclear device. Nukes are how the factions keep India from invading. A lose Pakistani nuke means they get killed by Indian or Western nuclear retaliation.
Remember, the only thing that unites the Pakistani people is their hate for India. This means that Kashmir’s and other terrorist activities aimed at India are a prerequisite activity for any Pakistani power faction attempting to gain dominant power there.
Pakistan, as a failed state, does not fit into Western ideas of what a state is and what a government of that state does.
The failed Pakistani state is a vehicle by which the various Pakistani power factions extract resources from the Pakistani people and especially foreigners for their own purposes. It is the tool to vie for power and eliminate the other Pakistani factions.
The Pakistani government, such as it is, exists primarily as a vehicle to deal with the outside world by keeping foreigners from invading and extracting money from gullible foreigners, primarily Westerners.
The Pakistani Army, chief among the Pakistani power factions, knows how to share the wealth in a better, less corrupt manner than Pakistani civilian politicians (who are very corrupt and have sharing issues) and the Jihadi nuts (who are on a mission from God).
This is why the Pakistani army periodically takes over the Pakistani state, then cedes it back to the politicians. It knows it can’t run everything and it needs civilian front men to get money from the West.
India’s immediate problems and the WORLD’s stem from Pakistan. It is the Disneyland of jihad and India is their neighbor. Outside Afghanistan, the rest of the world is escaping the mayhem because India is both next door and a soft target.
Pakistan does this because it can, and thanks to it’s nukes, the failed Pakistani state is safe to continue these policies.
India can do whatever it wants internally to stop its current terrorist problem, but Pakistan will continue to sponsor terror. There will always be some terrorist clique that one of the Pakistani state power factions will have been built up to start the terrorism cycle all over again.
India defeated the Punjab insurgency. Then Pakistan started Kashmir.
Then India, for all practical purposes defeated the Kashmir insurgency, and reduced it to a trickle, with Israeli technical assistance.
Now terrorist attacks on soft targets inside India by the Pakistani factions have started.
The question is what are the _Indian People_ going to do about it.
India does not have an effective government, due to internal corruption. At the Federal level, it is roughly what the US government was in 1860, but without the effective local and state governments that the USA had then to mobilize economic power into military capability.
However, as a Democracy, India has a far better chance than Pakistan to get people of talent through elections to clean up it’s internal messes. It requires that competent and economically powerful Indians to decide to run for office and deal with the national security threat India faces.
The only way India will be safe is to eliminate the Pakistani state.
The problem is that it will take time to get an effective government (5-7 years); to acquire the national resources (another 5-7 years) by developing good government, good economic and tax policies; and then actually build the militarily effective national security establishment (add another 5-7 years) that can deal with a nuclear armed Pakistan.
In the mean time continued Pakistani terrorist attacks are going to empower Hindu nationalist extremists to be beastly to Indian Muslims until an effective Indian government can be built to deal with the Pakistani state.
Things are going to be ugly and get worse on the Indian sub-continent for a long time, IMO.
Dec 9, 2008 - 5:21 am 17. WestGuard:More Nato troops are needed in Afghanastan if we are to succeed (at least in a reasonably quick timeframe) at finding and destroying Bin Laden and the leadership of Al Qaeda, along with their Taliban defenders.
The policing and humanitarian work is great and needed, but the main purpose of the mission was to find and destroy Al Qaeda and anyone else who would give aid and santuary to them.
Sadly there just aren’t enough troops vs the amount of area that needs to be controlled.
Repeated requests for more Nato troops have so far fallen on deaf ears. Aside from a handful of the bigger Nato guns (France, Britain, Canada, Norway, Austraia and a few others) most Nato troop contributions average less than 1,000, with some countries sending as few as a couple of hundred.
Worse yet, some of these allied troops have strict orders from their government not to actively seek and engage the enemy but rather to only fight back if they are attacked first.
With a larger allied force, areas that are taken by troops can be held onto while yet more troops can continue to push the enemy into a smaller area where they will be more concentrated and can be killed in much larger numbers.
Dec 9, 2008 - 9:20 am 18. Trent Telenko:I say to our allied politicians “send more troops, lift their restrictions on them, and these brave men will crush the enemy quicker than a mullah can say allah ackbar!”
Westguard,
There is nothing we say or do will change things for the better with regard to Pakistan.
There have been two attacks, in two days, on NATO resupply through Pakistan.
See this link:
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/…00812081771.htm
This happened in Peshawar, a provincial capital and _right_next_to_the_Pakistan_Army_XI_Corps_Headquarters.
If this is not a message from the Pakistan Army and ISI — pushing back on the USA for the heat we generated over Mumbai — then I don’t know what is.
America and NATO can only make the bad changes in Pakistan less severe and lasting.
And, in America’s case, because our ultimate means of doing so is drastic and final, we won’t go there until things have gotten far, far worse than they are already.
I repeat, Pakistan already is what we feared a nuclear-armed Iran would become.
Dec 9, 2008 - 10:52 am 19. Vilefather:I know what I am going to say is bad but.. all lands between central Afghanistan and Western-Northern India should be converted into a big smoking radiactive crater. A large percentage of today’s problems in the world come from that area and country: Pakistan. It must be destroyed
Dec 9, 2008 - 3:25 pm 20. Hooded swan:Not to disagree with anything that MY wrote, but there’s not a word about Afghani government corruption or incompetence. Nor anything about the lack of commitment demonstrated by the Afghani Army or National Police. Foreign forces can not win civil wars. The Afghanis need & should get lots & lots of US & EU help, but it’s on them. MY is as bad as any of the MSM he criticizes to leave this out.
Dec 11, 2008 - 8:23 pm 21. Hooded swan:Not to disagree with anything MY wrote, but there’s no mention of Afghani government corruption or incompetence. Neither is there any mention of the lack of commitment displayed by the Afghani Army & National Police. Foreign forces can not win a civil war. The Afghanis need & should get lots & lots of US & EU help, but, in the end, it’s on them. MY is as bad as any of the MSM to leave this out.
Dec 11, 2008 - 8:26 pm 22. jColes:I’ve already served a full year in Afghanistan as a civilian defense contractor and am working getting back there as soon as I can. Our troops are awesome, as are the Brits and nearly every Eastern European soldier (generic use) I met, traveled with, and spent many nights with in unpleasant places. Non-Pashtun Afghans — Hasarahs, Tajiks, Farahans, Heratis and others…are splendid people who are rebuilding their country, often with their bare hands and primitive tools…they are optimistic, brave people whom I am proud to call friend and ally. Mr. MY has captured the tone of Afghanistan perfectly in this first article. Most of the Taliban are Pashtuns…some four million Pashtuns live in Afghanistan…about 35 million live on the Pakistan side of the Durban Line (contested border between Afghanistan & Pakistan’s Waziristan region). These thugs are brutal oppressors who use the organization created by the Pakistani ISI as a means to continue their centuries-old oppression of the minority groups (smaller tribes). They have no regard for life, they despise the minority tribes and are only too happy to use them as human shields or set them up as targets for our side’s massive firepower… These are truly evil people who must be driven out of Afghanistan and their military capability destroyed forever.
The Afghan National Army is an amazing and fast-improving fighting force…I know most of the senior leadership…some are not qualified but many are US and, or British-trained professional soldiers…they, the US & ISAF trainers and the civilian contractor trainers have moved the ANA from a rabble to an emerging world-class army…They’re not now and likely never will be as good as US & British troops, but they’re already better than the majority of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF…a subset of NATO) troops…These men represent a major success in stabilizing this volatile region…Yes, some of the senior leaders are still corrupt and inept but Defense Minister Abdul Wardak and his top staff generals are weeding out the dead wood and bringing in dynamic new corps, brigade & battalion commanders. Our trainers are building a whole new generation of company-grade officers and for the first time in Afghan history, building a professional NCO corps. Much remains to be done in professionalizing this force, but what has been done is staggeringly good.
The Interior Ministry with its multiple ‘police forces,’ is still an awful mess…We got started on that ministry’s development late in the game but we’re making some headway in reducing internal corruption and training those forces…We all knew what the problems were but until about two years ago there just wasn’t enough money or enough staff to tackle both Defense and Interior…our leaders had to make very difficult choices…but we’re on our way now.
My friends who are now in Herat, Farah, Helmand and Kandahar provinces tell me that nearly all of the US-trained ANA troops are aggressive, dedicated and brave fighters…the train-up thus far is a story that all Americans should be proud of…still lots of problems to overcome…I’m not a PollyAnna…but if we do get more troops and more equipment in the contested areas and we continue to develop the ANA and ANP the Taliban & al Qaeda are going to be in for some very unpleasant times.
This war is winnable…we are winning, but not as quickly or as emphatically as we could or should. I look forward to reading the entire series of articles.
Dec 11, 2008 - 10:01 pm 23. veracious:The only solution to Afghanistan appears to be a solution to Pakistan; my best take, seems like Wretchard’s too. Since this hard_to_crack nut just floats on downstream, I wouldn’t grow the number of friendlies; but much: UAV, special ops, A-10s and finally B52s for the opportune moments (must keep this big stick at the ready).
Dec 12, 2008 - 11:45 am 24. Dan Mosqueda:Great article, as usual. I think you will see a lot more technology hit Afghanistan to help out areas where troop levels are thin. An emphasis on force multiplication is most certainly on the way.
Dec 13, 2008 - 8:06 am 25. Crafty Hunter:I frankly do not think a nuclear war between India and Pakistan can be avoided. Islamic radicalism is simply too extreme in Pakistan and Afghanistan, not to mention within the ranks of the terrorism bankrollers in Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent Iran. It could be hoped that the exchange will be limited with extreme pressure from Western powers to three or four cities on each sides. I have no idea what would happen in Afghanistan after such a horror. It’s an interesting question as to just when the nuclear exchange will take place, but I’m guessing between the years 2014 and 2016.
Dec 14, 2008 - 11:24 am 26. SouthWind58:In all such situations, the driver must ensure the integrity of the data by synchronizing access to the shared locations. ,
Oct 22, 2009 - 3:46 pm