As I write this, the last of Canada's mission to Afghanistan are back home. At 12+ years it is our longest war, even though the intense period (2006-2011) puts us in the same ballpark as WW2.
Is Afghanistan better off than in 2001? Without question. The questions come in when you look at the prognosis for stability, and that isn't great. We did what we could, more than Afghanistan has ever done for us, and anyone who expects more than that can do it themselves. Hopefully enough Afghans have something to lose now and will fight to keep their gains, but time will tell.
What separates Afghanistan from our previous expeditionary wars is the casualty rate. We lost 158 dead and several hundred (unpublished) seriously wounded: that's one bad Battalion attack in either World War and a large fraction of our losses in Korea over a much shorter period.
Each of those losses is a tragedy for individuals, but the scale makes a negligible impact on the fabric of Canadian society; the Army was at war, the Country wasn't. The frequent question is "Was it worth it?". I don't know the calculus of nation-building, so I can just hope that more people were helped than were hurt. Some will regret going due to injuries or loss of friends, but the CA is a professional volunteer force, and nobody was forced to go. It was, for lack of a more sensitive word, an adventure for many of us, and indeed what we signed up to do.
Afghanistan has profoundly changed both the Canadian Army and the public's relationship with us, and I hope that goodwill remains. The public is fickle however, and there is nothing new about it:
We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.
RIP to my comrades fallen in Afghanistan, and the best possible recovery to those who came home wounded in body and/or mind. Lest we forget.
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Tuesday, 18 March 2014
Saturday, 7 April 2012
God will know His own
Just when you thought things were screwed up enough in South Asia:
(Reuters) - An Islamist leader who had a $10 million American bounty placed on his head this week has been helping Pakistan de-radicalize militants under efforts to stabilize the strategic U.S. ally, a top Pakistani counter-terrorism official said on Friday.
Of course I have no idea how sincere this guy's effort to get heads out of religiously-brainwashed asses is, but taking the statements of the Pakistani government at face value, this situation seems sufficiently absurd to be plausible.
I know that doesn't seem like the best way to make a case for it, but that how things roll in the Global Something On Guys We Don't Like For Some Reason Or Another (GSOGWDLFSROA). I will forgive you if you don't see that acronym sticking, but I think it sums up the current state of play pretty well.
A key thing to remember is that even in the best-case that this is legit, "de-radicalizing" to the Pakis is not the same as it would be to the Yanks. To the former it means that some of the would-be jihadis will get jobs or at least stop attacking their own people. To the latter it would mean that they stop targeting Western troops and interests in that part of the world and beyond. It doesn't take a genius to see that "a" does NOT equal "b".
So? Past and current American practice is to shoot first and ask questions later (though ironically not when their own troops need that fire support in combat) so even money has a Hellfire with Hafiz Saeed's name on it despite whatever anyone else says about him. He may have it coming, but it is at least possible that killing him will be counter-productive on the strategic level. Oh well, I can always hope to be pleasantly surprised and that some investigation will be done before they lock on. On va voir.
(Reuters) - An Islamist leader who had a $10 million American bounty placed on his head this week has been helping Pakistan de-radicalize militants under efforts to stabilize the strategic U.S. ally, a top Pakistani counter-terrorism official said on Friday.
Of course I have no idea how sincere this guy's effort to get heads out of religiously-brainwashed asses is, but taking the statements of the Pakistani government at face value, this situation seems sufficiently absurd to be plausible.
I know that doesn't seem like the best way to make a case for it, but that how things roll in the Global Something On Guys We Don't Like For Some Reason Or Another (GSOGWDLFSROA). I will forgive you if you don't see that acronym sticking, but I think it sums up the current state of play pretty well.
A key thing to remember is that even in the best-case that this is legit, "de-radicalizing" to the Pakis is not the same as it would be to the Yanks. To the former it means that some of the would-be jihadis will get jobs or at least stop attacking their own people. To the latter it would mean that they stop targeting Western troops and interests in that part of the world and beyond. It doesn't take a genius to see that "a" does NOT equal "b".
So? Past and current American practice is to shoot first and ask questions later (though ironically not when their own troops need that fire support in combat) so even money has a Hellfire with Hafiz Saeed's name on it despite whatever anyone else says about him. He may have it coming, but it is at least possible that killing him will be counter-productive on the strategic level. Oh well, I can always hope to be pleasantly surprised and that some investigation will be done before they lock on. On va voir.
Monday, 2 April 2012
Declaration of War, the Short Form
For years now (predating this blog even) I have railed against the Americans' lack of sense vis a vis National or Strategic interest. This is manifest from everything they have done in the last 20 years. I say that time period, as during the preceding 40 years you could argue that the questionable regimes they propped up or overthrew were within the overall strategic design of containing Communism. When that collapsed under the weight of it's own inefficiency the Yanks started looking around for causes to replace it.
In fact the rot started before that, at the time slightly disguised as a way to stick it to the Soviets. The lack of consideration for unintended future consequences in shipping hundreds of millions of $ worth of cash and weapons to a barely (if at all) civilized group of raiders in Central Asia was truly breathtaking, but at least it was in the context of containing the Red Menace. Replacing them with the Green one wasn't the plan of course, but...
The article in The Atlantic which I linked to addresses the lack of long-term thinking that goes into the way America (and NATO by extension) fights these days. This is certainly fair, but I think it misses the bigger picture. Instead of planning as if you'll still be there in five years, ask yourself why wherever/whatever it is would be worth, in blood and treasure, getting locked up in it for years on end.
Let's imagine that the Americans broke Afghanistan's government ten years ago, laid a beating on Bin Laden's goons and then let the locals sort each other out. The whole thing as far as we're concerned would be over by spring 2002, mission (actually!) accomplished. Instead, we're here over ten years later staring down the barrel of the whole place doing exactly what I've said we should have let it do in the first place when NATO finally pulls the plug after 12-13 years in 2014 or so.
It's not a tactical problem, it's a strategic one. The trick lies in finding places that we might be able to help, not failed basket case states that will act as nationbuilding tar pits. Afghanistan? Fucked. Kosovo? Shouldn't have gotten involved, it was another "stick-it-to-the-Slavs" exercise which should have died out when Yeltsin came in. Iraq? I think we all know how big a mistake that was by now. Libya? Sure Qaddafi was a dick, but a bit of pragmatism in our foreign policy would have been in order there in view of what has happened. That one at least I am willing to wait out a bit before passing judgement, but my crystal ball has Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (at least) making a comeback...
What you want is a basically sound country with a bad government; that's a simple fix. Note however that "simple" and "easy" are not the same word; if it was easy the people would do it them selves. My example for this is Zimbabwe, albeit fixing it would require some old-school colonial-style administration while you build them a functioning government. South Sudan is another possibility, but the grand prize is Iran.
You may have noted that whenever I mention attacking Iran, it's always the Revolutionary Guard and other bulwarks of the Islamic regime, not the country itself. We can get on just fine if we clear the decks for them to have a more reasonable crew in charge of the place. There would be nary a boot on the ground, save some operators making contact with the opposition, certainly no "ground troops".
This is how I would do things, but I don't set policy for anyone. What I can say is that whatever I did I would assume that my kids would be dealing with it after I'm gone, and pick my battles accordingly.
In fact the rot started before that, at the time slightly disguised as a way to stick it to the Soviets. The lack of consideration for unintended future consequences in shipping hundreds of millions of $ worth of cash and weapons to a barely (if at all) civilized group of raiders in Central Asia was truly breathtaking, but at least it was in the context of containing the Red Menace. Replacing them with the Green one wasn't the plan of course, but...
The article in The Atlantic which I linked to addresses the lack of long-term thinking that goes into the way America (and NATO by extension) fights these days. This is certainly fair, but I think it misses the bigger picture. Instead of planning as if you'll still be there in five years, ask yourself why wherever/whatever it is would be worth, in blood and treasure, getting locked up in it for years on end.
Let's imagine that the Americans broke Afghanistan's government ten years ago, laid a beating on Bin Laden's goons and then let the locals sort each other out. The whole thing as far as we're concerned would be over by spring 2002, mission (actually!) accomplished. Instead, we're here over ten years later staring down the barrel of the whole place doing exactly what I've said we should have let it do in the first place when NATO finally pulls the plug after 12-13 years in 2014 or so.
It's not a tactical problem, it's a strategic one. The trick lies in finding places that we might be able to help, not failed basket case states that will act as nationbuilding tar pits. Afghanistan? Fucked. Kosovo? Shouldn't have gotten involved, it was another "stick-it-to-the-Slavs" exercise which should have died out when Yeltsin came in. Iraq? I think we all know how big a mistake that was by now. Libya? Sure Qaddafi was a dick, but a bit of pragmatism in our foreign policy would have been in order there in view of what has happened. That one at least I am willing to wait out a bit before passing judgement, but my crystal ball has Tripolitania and Cyrenaica (at least) making a comeback...
What you want is a basically sound country with a bad government; that's a simple fix. Note however that "simple" and "easy" are not the same word; if it was easy the people would do it them selves. My example for this is Zimbabwe, albeit fixing it would require some old-school colonial-style administration while you build them a functioning government. South Sudan is another possibility, but the grand prize is Iran.
You may have noted that whenever I mention attacking Iran, it's always the Revolutionary Guard and other bulwarks of the Islamic regime, not the country itself. We can get on just fine if we clear the decks for them to have a more reasonable crew in charge of the place. There would be nary a boot on the ground, save some operators making contact with the opposition, certainly no "ground troops".
This is how I would do things, but I don't set policy for anyone. What I can say is that whatever I did I would assume that my kids would be dealing with it after I'm gone, and pick my battles accordingly.
Saturday, 25 February 2012
International Burn a Religious Text Day
Once again, books are being burned (for good reason this time) and people are killing other people and themselves over it. I give Islam a lot of stick on this blog, but any Muslims can rest assured that I would be equally scathing with any other group that was so violently touchy and intolerant.
There is a lot of bowing and scraping about the "desecration" of the books, but that is NOT against any law in North America to the best of my knowledge. The Bible pre-dates the Koran by a whole lot and is the basis for Islam (whether they'll admit it any more or not) and I can burn as many of those as I want and nobody makes a peep.
Oh, I'm sure you'll find a few Christian nutjobs who'd like to lynch me over it, but they'd be pooh-poohed as cranks. What do you do when there are hundreds of millions of nutjobs? Apparently you panic and kowtow:
Last year, when controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones presided over what he called a trial of the Quran and burned a copy, Afghans took to the streets by the thousands. In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, demonstrators stormed a U.N. office and killed 12 people. In Kandahar, three people were killed in one demonstration, and nine in another when police and stone-throwing demonstrators clashed.
There is a lot of bowing and scraping about the "desecration" of the books, but that is NOT against any law in North America to the best of my knowledge. The Bible pre-dates the Koran by a whole lot and is the basis for Islam (whether they'll admit it any more or not) and I can burn as many of those as I want and nobody makes a peep.
Oh, I'm sure you'll find a few Christian nutjobs who'd like to lynch me over it, but they'd be pooh-poohed as cranks. What do you do when there are hundreds of millions of nutjobs? Apparently you panic and kowtow:
Last year, when controversial Florida pastor Terry Jones presided over what he called a trial of the Quran and burned a copy, Afghans took to the streets by the thousands. In the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, demonstrators stormed a U.N. office and killed 12 people. In Kandahar, three people were killed in one demonstration, and nine in another when police and stone-throwing demonstrators clashed.
American officials vociferously condemned the pastor's act.
"...the strongest manner possible ." Think about that language. This equates burning a mass-produced book to the raping and killing children or other such universally abhorrent acts. I'm sure Director (then General) Petraeus would contest my equivalence here but there is no getting around what he said and what it means. And for Obama to call for "a fair and public trial", I'd like to know what law these American service people broke, even under military law that would call for a trial; they were burning the trash, and the books were in it for good reason.
So, to sum up:
- Burn a Koran, be threatened with arbitrary arrest and/or death at the hands of incensed Muslims the world over, or;
- Riot, burn and kill people about something which has nothing to do with you and you are "proud and noble".
If you want to live under a system where you're executed for this sort of thing, move to, well, any self-identified "Muslim" country. Under the law of MY land, I can have a big Koran/Bible/Torah/Bhagavad Gita/Kangyur BBQ in my backyard (local fire ordinances permitting) and there is nothing illegal about it. Of course, making a ranting Youtube video about it could land me in front of the Human Rights Tribunal, but that becomes a "hate speech" issue and don't get me going on that in a discussion of freedom of expression.
I feel badly for all of the decent people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and anywhere else who are condemned to live with the REAL intolerance and bigotry which kills you if you step out of line. Let's haul in front of a Human Rights Tribunal all of the people who would kill me (or them) for saying what a lot of people think about bullshit religions instead of terrorising people into being Sharia compliant dhimmis. If you don't know what those last two terms mean, do yourself a favour and research them, especially "Dhimmitude", 'cause that's where Obama, Petraeus and General John Allen have already placed us.
Monday, 5 December 2011
The end? Nothing ever ends...
With the writing on the wall, you'll hear a lot more of this:
Karzai said: "Afghanistan will certainly need help for another 10 years, until around 2024. We will need training for our own troops. We will need equipment for the army and police and help to set up state institutions."
Referring to the Taliban regime, he added: "If we lose this fight, we are threatened with a return to a situation like that before Sept. 11, 2001."
Afghanistan is a sinkhole for all the blood and treasure anyone could sink into it, and this shilling for baksheesh has set the gears in my head into motion. It's napkin math time ladies and gents, lets see what my Frontier Arithmetic comes up with; specifically the cost of what brought us into that tar pit, versus what it's cost since.
Wikipedia has the total fatalities "in and around Afghanistan" for coalition countries at about 2800 (their figures as of 30 Nov 2011). This sounds about right to me so I'll work with it. Likewise, the amount that the USA has spent on Afghanistan to date will be impossible to determine exactly, but http://costofwar.com/en/ has it as $464Bn at the time of writing. I won't bother with what Canada has spent, but I'm sure we had better things to do with the money, even if it has been a big boost the the Canadian Army and (lesser extent) Air Force.
Now, the cost of the 9/11 attack that triggered it all is almost equally fraught. Here is one account which has it in the neighborhood of $2T. A lot of that is stock market "loss" but looking at property losses alone it's over $100B. Canada of course was physically unscathed in the 9/11 attack, but we've still spent billions in and because of Afghanistan. This is an amount that Canada can easily absorb, the same can not be said for US expenditures.
The happily departed OBL stated Al Queda's plan as one of "Bleed to Bankruptcy" and it was more successful than it should have been. Based on the above the balance sheet for nation building in Afghanistan (as opposed to Special Forces and air support) isn't looking good. For the umpteenth time, it's been diminishing returns since 2002, and there will be little to show that we accomplished anything. Bad geopolitical investment.
I can't say I've given up predicting the course of things over there, but our side has lost a lot (modern terms) of troops and poured a lot of money down the Central Asian drain. I don't think that the Taliban will be as successful as last time, but the hard-won progress in the Afghan provinces has been very temporary and as soon as we leave every idiot gang with guns will move in all over the south and east.
If nothing else, remember that the USSR did the same things we did; propped up a government, built stuff, etc., with the difference that they bombed "civilians" ON PURPOSE when they felt it necessary and never apologized. Whatever temporary cooperation we've bought over there will dry up as soon as our money does and the troops aren't there to keep the Talibs down. Should look great in the history books; I wonder who'll try the place next? China perhaps?
Karzai said: "Afghanistan will certainly need help for another 10 years, until around 2024. We will need training for our own troops. We will need equipment for the army and police and help to set up state institutions."
Referring to the Taliban regime, he added: "If we lose this fight, we are threatened with a return to a situation like that before Sept. 11, 2001."
Afghanistan is a sinkhole for all the blood and treasure anyone could sink into it, and this shilling for baksheesh has set the gears in my head into motion. It's napkin math time ladies and gents, lets see what my Frontier Arithmetic comes up with; specifically the cost of what brought us into that tar pit, versus what it's cost since.
Wikipedia has the total fatalities "in and around Afghanistan" for coalition countries at about 2800 (their figures as of 30 Nov 2011). This sounds about right to me so I'll work with it. Likewise, the amount that the USA has spent on Afghanistan to date will be impossible to determine exactly, but http://costofwar.com/en/ has it as $464Bn at the time of writing. I won't bother with what Canada has spent, but I'm sure we had better things to do with the money, even if it has been a big boost the the Canadian Army and (lesser extent) Air Force.
Now, the cost of the 9/11 attack that triggered it all is almost equally fraught. Here is one account which has it in the neighborhood of $2T. A lot of that is stock market "loss" but looking at property losses alone it's over $100B. Canada of course was physically unscathed in the 9/11 attack, but we've still spent billions in and because of Afghanistan. This is an amount that Canada can easily absorb, the same can not be said for US expenditures.
The happily departed OBL stated Al Queda's plan as one of "Bleed to Bankruptcy" and it was more successful than it should have been. Based on the above the balance sheet for nation building in Afghanistan (as opposed to Special Forces and air support) isn't looking good. For the umpteenth time, it's been diminishing returns since 2002, and there will be little to show that we accomplished anything. Bad geopolitical investment.
I can't say I've given up predicting the course of things over there, but our side has lost a lot (modern terms) of troops and poured a lot of money down the Central Asian drain. I don't think that the Taliban will be as successful as last time, but the hard-won progress in the Afghan provinces has been very temporary and as soon as we leave every idiot gang with guns will move in all over the south and east.
If nothing else, remember that the USSR did the same things we did; propped up a government, built stuff, etc., with the difference that they bombed "civilians" ON PURPOSE when they felt it necessary and never apologized. Whatever temporary cooperation we've bought over there will dry up as soon as our money does and the troops aren't there to keep the Talibs down. Should look great in the history books; I wonder who'll try the place next? China perhaps?
Monday, 24 October 2011
Talibanistan and the Line of Death
I formed my opinions of Afghanistan well before I went there, but I didn't see anything which changed my mind about how to deal with the place. Michael Yon has spent far more time and ranged much more broadly there than I have/ever will and in the linked article he brings up the same point that I was advocating five years ago.
I called it "Talibanistan", but it was really about maximising return on our efforts. The more bad guys there are in the population, and the more support they have, the more it will be a lethal rats' nest for our troops and development workers. There is in Afghanistan a rather obvious dividing line (several in fact) between people who support the "Taliban" and people who will not.
Sectarianism is usually a bad thing, but there are a lot of examples from history which show how it can be used to achieve an aim. The aim admittedly is usually "divide and conquer", but the principles work just as well for "unite and secure".
Birds of feather do indeed flock together, and if the "feather" is not wanting to live under repressive religious thugs, there are a lot of those people in most parts of A-stan. There are a lot of those same people however who have ties of blood and/or culture to the Taliban et al, and in this case that would be the Pashtun. Not all Pashtun are Taliban, but most Taliban are Pashtun, so you have a ready-made dividing line. This line tallies pretty well with the southern provinces that ISAF hs been fighting and dying in for the last 10 years, so a "Line of Death" would be pretty simple to come up with.
The key element to make this work is to ensure that the rump Afghanistan encompasses contiguous populations who are inimical to the Taliban. This means the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras as a start. The map here provides a rough idea, and this one of the Northern Alliance (vs. the Taliban in 1996) correlates very well, although the Hazara regions were overrun.
This of course would lead to a large area of the Pakistani NW Frontier and Southern Afghanistan being written off, but ask yourself what difference that would make in the big picture. The place is already not controlled in any way, we're just playing high-(and low)tech whack-a-mole with a bunch of Pakistan-supported badasses all through the south and east. Shift the borders of what we'll concern ourselves with (if we even continue to do so) and we shift the goalposts toward a win for somebody as opposed to a loss for everyone.
This is the point of Michael's article; there are people there who want our help (I've met them too) who won't try to kill us as we deliver it. These are the people over there (if anybody) that we should try to help, because they'll fight with us to defend their communities and projects.
As for my "Line of Death", the proposed border? I wouldn't want to consign civilized Pashtuns to the brutish rule of the Taliban (and the Haqqani Network, etc.) so it would be a mutable border. From a stable base the Pashtun territory could be absorbed in discrete "bites" working outward until too much resistance was reached, then the border Hesco fortresses go up. Those would be manned by Afghans with drones flying patrol and some bombers and SF teams on call. The"Line of Death" name isn't meant to be figurative: cross it with a weapon or try to sneak across, you die.
This blog is called "Arithmetic on the Frontier" for a reason; there are diminishing returns with everything, and nation building is no exception. After the 10 years we've been mucking about in the place there are still lots of "no-go" areas (Helmand, Zari, Panjwai, etc.); if we're not going to completely cut and run we'll need to cut our losses. I'm sure quiet parts of Afghanistan would appreciate some help,and our money wouldn't be going down the drain like when the Taliban blows up our schools and irrigation projects in the less-friendly parts.
My bottom line? Screw the villages that we get blown up patrolling; there's nothing there that we (or the Americans) need, and if you really want to dent the opium trade, spray the damned poppy fields. My prediction? China will move in and do (something like) this if we don't. If they don't, the place will carry on much like it is.
I called it "Talibanistan", but it was really about maximising return on our efforts. The more bad guys there are in the population, and the more support they have, the more it will be a lethal rats' nest for our troops and development workers. There is in Afghanistan a rather obvious dividing line (several in fact) between people who support the "Taliban" and people who will not.
Sectarianism is usually a bad thing, but there are a lot of examples from history which show how it can be used to achieve an aim. The aim admittedly is usually "divide and conquer", but the principles work just as well for "unite and secure".
Birds of feather do indeed flock together, and if the "feather" is not wanting to live under repressive religious thugs, there are a lot of those people in most parts of A-stan. There are a lot of those same people however who have ties of blood and/or culture to the Taliban et al, and in this case that would be the Pashtun. Not all Pashtun are Taliban, but most Taliban are Pashtun, so you have a ready-made dividing line. This line tallies pretty well with the southern provinces that ISAF hs been fighting and dying in for the last 10 years, so a "Line of Death" would be pretty simple to come up with.
The key element to make this work is to ensure that the rump Afghanistan encompasses contiguous populations who are inimical to the Taliban. This means the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras as a start. The map here provides a rough idea, and this one of the Northern Alliance (vs. the Taliban in 1996) correlates very well, although the Hazara regions were overrun.
This of course would lead to a large area of the Pakistani NW Frontier and Southern Afghanistan being written off, but ask yourself what difference that would make in the big picture. The place is already not controlled in any way, we're just playing high-(and low)tech whack-a-mole with a bunch of Pakistan-supported badasses all through the south and east. Shift the borders of what we'll concern ourselves with (if we even continue to do so) and we shift the goalposts toward a win for somebody as opposed to a loss for everyone.
This is the point of Michael's article; there are people there who want our help (I've met them too) who won't try to kill us as we deliver it. These are the people over there (if anybody) that we should try to help, because they'll fight with us to defend their communities and projects.
As for my "Line of Death", the proposed border? I wouldn't want to consign civilized Pashtuns to the brutish rule of the Taliban (and the Haqqani Network, etc.) so it would be a mutable border. From a stable base the Pashtun territory could be absorbed in discrete "bites" working outward until too much resistance was reached, then the border Hesco fortresses go up. Those would be manned by Afghans with drones flying patrol and some bombers and SF teams on call. The"Line of Death" name isn't meant to be figurative: cross it with a weapon or try to sneak across, you die.
This blog is called "Arithmetic on the Frontier" for a reason; there are diminishing returns with everything, and nation building is no exception. After the 10 years we've been mucking about in the place there are still lots of "no-go" areas (Helmand, Zari, Panjwai, etc.); if we're not going to completely cut and run we'll need to cut our losses. I'm sure quiet parts of Afghanistan would appreciate some help,and our money wouldn't be going down the drain like when the Taliban blows up our schools and irrigation projects in the less-friendly parts.
My bottom line? Screw the villages that we get blown up patrolling; there's nothing there that we (or the Americans) need, and if you really want to dent the opium trade, spray the damned poppy fields. My prediction? China will move in and do (something like) this if we don't. If they don't, the place will carry on much like it is.
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
Moving on; what next?
Canada's front-line fighting role in Afghanistan officially ended Tuesday when soldiers of the Royal 22e Regiment handed battlefield combat responsibilities over to the Americans.
Almost all Canadian troops are out of Kandahar's dangerous combat zones, except for a few soldiers who are attached to American platoons for a few more weeks.
Canada's war in Afghanistan is now effectively over after five years of fighting throughout farmland and dusty villages in one of the country's most dangerous areas. It cost Canada the lives of 157 soldiers, one diplomat and one journalist, not to mention the many soldiers left with life-altering injuries.
I'll have some more to say about this later, but I'm happy that we're away from this tar baby. I'm apprehensive about the future of the Canadian Army without the fire this lit under it, but I guess we'll see. Hopefully wherever we go next will be more important to our national interests (or at least capable of really helping some people in a permanent fashion) than our other current entanglement in Libya.
Saturday, 2 April 2011
Fighting to make the world safe for jihad
National Post, Saturday April 2 2011:
Stirred up by a trio of angry mullahs who urged them to avenge the burning of a Koran at a Florida church, thousands of protesters overran the compound of the United Nations in this northern Afghan city, killing at least 12 people.
This is what we're fighting for in Afghanistan folks: barbarians who will kill any westerner (or anyone working for them) they can find to "avenge" burning a book (title link). I don't give a rat's ass about the "holiness" of a mass produced article, it's a thing, and civilized people don't kill people over burning a book, a TV or anything else that is easily replaceable.
In the other-things-that-are-getting-less-press department, if you haven't heard of Veena Malik you really need to. She is a babe-a-licious Pakistani actress, but more importantly she has vast intestinal fortitude. The Taliban are predictably threatening to kill her and they give this as their position on women, in case anyone was unclear:
"We want our daughters and sisters in our homes only and Veena Malik, who is humiliating Pakistan's name in India, will be punished soon."
I'm happy that Canada is getting out, but NATO and the US need to leave too and leave Afghanistan and Pakistan to stew in their Islamic juice. Hopefully as many of the good people from both countries (but a lot more in Pakistan) can do something else, but I'm doubting it. Now we're involved in a formless campaign in Libya and I can't see any good coming of that either. Oh well; if nothing else at least I'm certain that there will be no significant contribution of Canadian troops to Libya no matter what happens. We don't need another 9-year war now that we're finally getting out of Afghanistan.
Stirred up by a trio of angry mullahs who urged them to avenge the burning of a Koran at a Florida church, thousands of protesters overran the compound of the United Nations in this northern Afghan city, killing at least 12 people.
This is what we're fighting for in Afghanistan folks: barbarians who will kill any westerner (or anyone working for them) they can find to "avenge" burning a book (title link). I don't give a rat's ass about the "holiness" of a mass produced article, it's a thing, and civilized people don't kill people over burning a book, a TV or anything else that is easily replaceable.
In the other-things-that-are-getting-less-press department, if you haven't heard of Veena Malik you really need to. She is a babe-a-licious Pakistani actress, but more importantly she has vast intestinal fortitude. The Taliban are predictably threatening to kill her and they give this as their position on women, in case anyone was unclear:
"We want our daughters and sisters in our homes only and Veena Malik, who is humiliating Pakistan's name in India, will be punished soon."
I'm happy that Canada is getting out, but NATO and the US need to leave too and leave Afghanistan and Pakistan to stew in their Islamic juice. Hopefully as many of the good people from both countries (but a lot more in Pakistan) can do something else, but I'm doubting it. Now we're involved in a formless campaign in Libya and I can't see any good coming of that either. Oh well; if nothing else at least I'm certain that there will be no significant contribution of Canadian troops to Libya no matter what happens. We don't need another 9-year war now that we're finally getting out of Afghanistan.
Thursday, 10 February 2011
Arithmetic on the North-West Frontier
As the Americans go through the early stages of Imperial Overstretch, the calculus of a competent empire in decline would involve which satrapies and allies to cut loose to consolidate diminishing resources and influence. There is no evidence of the USA having been at any point a competent empire (nod to Jerry Pournelle for use of his term) so it is no surprise that they are not getting any cannier about their foreign policy as they begin the slide from Superpower to mere Great Power.
The recent violation of Diplomatic Immunity of a US consular official in Pakistan gives the US State Department a fleeting opportunity to grow a pair and begin this process of retrenchment. Pakistan is fucked and is absorbing a lot of $US for no useful return; to accept this sort of treatment from a fundamentalist Islamic country that you have poured billions of dollars into in the last decade is embarrassing. There are certain standards that civilized countries hold themselves to, and this is not within that.
That particular situation is of course a molehill, but you can see the mountain from it. There is nothing in Pakistan or Afghanistan which is worth the life or limb of our soldiers or the money of our taxpayers. If they want to descend into another Islamopocalypse and drive out the last of the “infidels” the only useful thing we could do is to help those Christians, Hindus and Sikhs who remain to get somewhere safer.
The most effective way to do that will of course not happen, since it’s known variously as a pogrom or ethnic cleansing. Problems with violent Muslims in Indian Kashmir? Push them all over the border and repopulate with people who need to get out of Pakistan in a hurry. I of course don’t have a plan for that (another Indo-Pakistani war would figure prominently), but it would be 1947 all over again.
That seems a bit of a tangent, but it illustrates the whole “Clash of Civilizations” thing, and the fact that we are best off working with people who are not inimical to our way(s) of life. India has problems but one of its problems is China and another is Pakistan, both on Western radar as trouble for us. The adversary of our troublesome geopolitical adversaries should be a very close friend. More importantly, India is not in the grasp of an ideology that wants our civilization destroyed.
This is the big-picture stuff that Emperors have done for millennia, at least when other groups were too powerful to conquer easily and/or more useful as allies. There are few direct parallels as modern transport and communications have changed “The Great Game” in all respects, but the key part is ensuring the interests and thereby the longevity of your kingdom, etc. This is something that modern democracies are fundamentally incompatible with and that the Americans prove themselves time and again incapable of grasping at almost every level of government.
For the United States of America today, a snippet from the late Victorian Age:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Change the scenery a bit and you have the U.S. sphere of influence today, much of it the British empire of Kipling’s heyday. America has lost much face and will be doing well to salvage any reputation with its allies, let alone hold the places that don’t like it to begin with. Some new leadership (REAL leadership) in the U.S.A. could stop the rot, but it’s looking more and more all the time like this:
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
The recent violation of Diplomatic Immunity of a US consular official in Pakistan gives the US State Department a fleeting opportunity to grow a pair and begin this process of retrenchment. Pakistan is fucked and is absorbing a lot of $US for no useful return; to accept this sort of treatment from a fundamentalist Islamic country that you have poured billions of dollars into in the last decade is embarrassing. There are certain standards that civilized countries hold themselves to, and this is not within that.
That particular situation is of course a molehill, but you can see the mountain from it. There is nothing in Pakistan or Afghanistan which is worth the life or limb of our soldiers or the money of our taxpayers. If they want to descend into another Islamopocalypse and drive out the last of the “infidels” the only useful thing we could do is to help those Christians, Hindus and Sikhs who remain to get somewhere safer.
The most effective way to do that will of course not happen, since it’s known variously as a pogrom or ethnic cleansing. Problems with violent Muslims in Indian Kashmir? Push them all over the border and repopulate with people who need to get out of Pakistan in a hurry. I of course don’t have a plan for that (another Indo-Pakistani war would figure prominently), but it would be 1947 all over again.
That seems a bit of a tangent, but it illustrates the whole “Clash of Civilizations” thing, and the fact that we are best off working with people who are not inimical to our way(s) of life. India has problems but one of its problems is China and another is Pakistan, both on Western radar as trouble for us. The adversary of our troublesome geopolitical adversaries should be a very close friend. More importantly, India is not in the grasp of an ideology that wants our civilization destroyed.
This is the big-picture stuff that Emperors have done for millennia, at least when other groups were too powerful to conquer easily and/or more useful as allies. There are few direct parallels as modern transport and communications have changed “The Great Game” in all respects, but the key part is ensuring the interests and thereby the longevity of your kingdom, etc. This is something that modern democracies are fundamentally incompatible with and that the Americans prove themselves time and again incapable of grasping at almost every level of government.
For the United States of America today, a snippet from the late Victorian Age:
God of our fathers, known of old,
Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Change the scenery a bit and you have the U.S. sphere of influence today, much of it the British empire of Kipling’s heyday. America has lost much face and will be doing well to salvage any reputation with its allies, let alone hold the places that don’t like it to begin with. Some new leadership (REAL leadership) in the U.S.A. could stop the rot, but it’s looking more and more all the time like this:
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget, lest we forget!
Wednesday, 21 July 2010
Rob Semrau vs.Christie Blatchford
Rob isn't out of the woods with yesterday's verdict, but his career is likely in a fatal stall. What this means is he will likely be consigned to staff work even if the "Disgraceful Conduct" doesn't get him booted out.
I've met Rob, and he's a real soldier who would have no problems in a real war. A "real war" is one where you have a job to do; that job is killing the enemy, AND that enemy doesn't wear your uniform. I have no certain knowledge of this, but I believe that he did finish that shredded Taliban guy off. It wouldn't have caused a blink in WW1, WW2 or Korea, and it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.
I do therefore take exception to this "verdict" from Christie Blatchford:
Yet every soldier I asked about it said pretty much the same thing: The Geneva Conventions, the International Law of Armed Conflict and the Canadian soldier’s bible on such matters, Duty with Honour: The Profession of Arms in Canada, all are firm that once a soldier is injured and hors de combat, French for “out of the fight,” he is considered a prisoner of war, and deserving of every protection.
...
I wonder if that distinction between Canadian soldiers and every other guy with a gun in Afghanistan now will be more difficult to establish.
Christie and perhaps "every soldier" she asked missed one thing; this was no "soldier" under any of those conventions. He was a franc-tireur, insurgent, what have you, and not protected by those treaties and agreements. Technically there is no obligation to take them prisoner, but in today's environment shooting any kind of "detainee" is a no-go, so why worry about the conventions?
As for Ms Blatchford's "distinction" exit line, give me a break. Even if this was a widespread practice (and it's not) we aren't the ones executing kids for having American money on them, slaughtering anyone who disagrees with us, subjugating all of the females and doing our best to deny an education or any kind of progress to the population. And, oh, yeah, we wear uniforms and don't use the people as human shields. If that isn't enough of a "distinction" between us and the Taliban/drug runners/general bandits over there then I don't know what she expects.
Get a grip Christie; you've been over there, you should know better than to come out with this sort of melodrama.
I've met Rob, and he's a real soldier who would have no problems in a real war. A "real war" is one where you have a job to do; that job is killing the enemy, AND that enemy doesn't wear your uniform. I have no certain knowledge of this, but I believe that he did finish that shredded Taliban guy off. It wouldn't have caused a blink in WW1, WW2 or Korea, and it was the right thing to do under the circumstances.
I do therefore take exception to this "verdict" from Christie Blatchford:
Yet every soldier I asked about it said pretty much the same thing: The Geneva Conventions, the International Law of Armed Conflict and the Canadian soldier’s bible on such matters, Duty with Honour: The Profession of Arms in Canada, all are firm that once a soldier is injured and hors de combat, French for “out of the fight,” he is considered a prisoner of war, and deserving of every protection.
...
I wonder if that distinction between Canadian soldiers and every other guy with a gun in Afghanistan now will be more difficult to establish.
Christie and perhaps "every soldier" she asked missed one thing; this was no "soldier" under any of those conventions. He was a franc-tireur, insurgent, what have you, and not protected by those treaties and agreements. Technically there is no obligation to take them prisoner, but in today's environment shooting any kind of "detainee" is a no-go, so why worry about the conventions?
As for Ms Blatchford's "distinction" exit line, give me a break. Even if this was a widespread practice (and it's not) we aren't the ones executing kids for having American money on them, slaughtering anyone who disagrees with us, subjugating all of the females and doing our best to deny an education or any kind of progress to the population. And, oh, yeah, we wear uniforms and don't use the people as human shields. If that isn't enough of a "distinction" between us and the Taliban/drug runners/general bandits over there then I don't know what she expects.
Get a grip Christie; you've been over there, you should know better than to come out with this sort of melodrama.
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