Imagine what Bush must be thinking about now...

[kevbone]

If you are going to abandon the mission

 

What is the mission Scott?

 

Kev, shut the fuck up.

 

You talk big for a minion. The quote above is your own words.

 

Please inform me what "the mission" is. I honestly dont think you know.

[billcoe]

The mission appears to be up in the air yet for Asscrackistan:

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mayhill-fowler/afghanistan-obamas-men-an_b_169462.html

 

"Lieutenant Colonel Brian Mennes, U.S. Army, commander, 1st Ranger Battalion, has recently returned from Afghanistan, where he has served for fourteen months in eight provinces. One evening last week he spoke over after-dinner drinks to a few reporters about the frustrations of command in Afghanistan.

 

"My men can clear the village for you in two to three days -- no problem," Mennes says, recounting the conversation he has again and again with NATO officers in theater. For Mennes, this is a typical scenario: one of the twenty-six NATO forces calls upon the Rangers to clear insurgents from a town or valley. "'Now what? 'What do you want me to do next?' I ask," Mennes says, "and nobody has thought that far." The Lt. Col. gives the reporters another example of this impasse. "So now USAID comes into the village and asks, 'How can we help you?' and I turn to them and say, "Your asking that question is the problem in Afghanistan. I should be asking you the question."

 

The point for Mennes -- the source of his frustration and indeed his anger -- is that there is no plan for Afghanistan and beyond that any sense of a larger American foreign policy for his men on the ground to implement. The absence of an overarching vision with concomitant strategies to achieve goals in realizing that vision is a point on which not only active military leaders like Lt. Col. Mennes but also every retired general, think tank fellow, professor, NGO partner and military expert of any stripe agree, in a series of seminars for these same reporters. We are spending a week at the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism at the University of Maryland in discussion of the topic "U.S. Military: New President, New Outlook?" The consensus prediction would seem to be no -- at least in the sense that expectations are low.

 

The next day in seminar Lt. Col. Mennes expands on his postprandial remarks. "For the Marines going back to Helmand [province], who is in charge?" Mennes asks. As he suggested the night before, the U.S. military has mastered its own role in counterinsurgency. Relearning in Iraq the lessons that should have been incorporated into military planning after Vietnam, the Army and Marines have now got it right in waging irregular warfare. At issue is who takes over after the Marines in Helmand have done their job. Who helps the locals transition to a self-governance that will preclude their falling prey once again to insurgents? Who nurtures that leadership? What nurtures that leadership? "I wanted to break down and cry," Mennes says -- and this admission from an officer who, as a reporter observes, could play himself in the movie -- "when Marines came in and were not allowed to subordinate themselves to Afghans." How else to plant seeds of respect for Afghan governance? In Helmand, "the drug lords are the leaders, and we try to kill them," Mennes says, by way of pointing out the self-defeating dynamic of Coalition poppy policy.

 

"Our counterinsurgency and counter-narcotics goals are at odds," says Seth Jones, an Afghanistan specialist with the RAND Corporation who shares the podium with Lt. Col. Mennes. Maybe we should just bring in Merck Pharmaceutical and buy the poppy in Southern Afghanistan, Seth Jones suggests, because all the farmers there are indentured. When Coalition forces eradicate these crops, Lt. Col. Mennes adds, "Do we have an agricultural-hydrology plan for an alternative to poppy?"

 

If the lack of transition foresight and leadership in Southern Afghanistan is complicated by the drug trade, in Northern Afghanistan the geography of isolated mountain valleys is an issue. Pashtuns in one valley have heard of Pashtuns in other valleys but have never met them. How then to realize some kind of security, if not through centralized governance? "This is not a Taliban insurgency," Seth Jones says. "Politics are very localized." There are lots of criminal elements, he goes on to say, and not just black tar smugglers in the South but timber and gem dealers in the North. There are the local militia forces, Iranian elements, tribes and clans that switch sides and some Afghan government supporters of insurgents. With insurgency in Afghanistan, it all depends on "which village -- district -- province." Therefore, recent talk about cutting a deal with moderate elements of the Taliban as a way of achieving stability would seem to be a chimera. Furthermore, as both Jones and Mennes observe, there is growing unhappiness in the provinces, which historically have never accepted centralized authority anyway, with the government in Kabul. Among American and NATO leadership, "there is no will to deal with these people at the top," Seth Jones says, in reference to the administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and its corruption, "and that is undermining us."

 

The role of city manager, as Lt. Col. Mennes calls it, or in the words of Seth Jones, "engaging the local centers of gravity," is the responsibility, from the American part of the Coalition, of the State Department. However, a further point of agreement among the Knight participants is that it has been a long time since State has stepped up to the plate, and not just in Afghanistan. Military brass and military reporters with embed experience mention "PRTs [provincial reconstruction teams] afraid to leave Kabul." There are plans afoot to change State's risk-averse culture, but they will take time. Meanwhile nothing could be more irrelevant to counterinsurgency implementation than the State Department regulation that its employees be housed in office buildings that meet certain security requirements. "My office is on the cutting edge of changing the State Department risk culture," says Ambassador John Herbst, now coordinator for a new program at State to develop a corps of trained civilians for reconstruction and stabilization. And yes, John Herbst says, when pressed by the Knight reporters, in Afghanistan that means that some will be killed.

 

Meanwhile, without the civilian component in place to deal with what the military in counterinsurgency calls "the problem of hold," the U.S. Army and Marines have filled the vacuum, negotiating with the tribes and clans in Afghanistan as they did with the sheiks in Anbar Province, Iraq. Lt. Col. Mennes, who speaks both Pashtun and Dari, talks about learning the local values of "subordination and respect" and what he calls the Pashtun Valley Code. He teaches his men that "these people have worth even though they treat their women so badly." Among the locals, he resolves disputes. It's justice -- not security -- that they want most, Mennes says. Warriors stepping into a warrior culture, Mennes and his peers perform the task of hold with a natural authority that Herbst's civilians may not find so easy to master.

 

Mennes speaks frankly about "COIN [counterinsurgency] risk," which he sees not as risk to his men or himself but to the local population he has come so far, in his mind, to serve. He can easily envision the local family, who by the Pashtun Valley Code has offered hospitality to Taliban, "cowering in the corner of the house and praying we don't fire [on] the Taliban at that moment." For this reason, Mennes says, "I rarely dropped big bombs on houses." Nevertheless, he has been responsible for the deaths of civilians, the "collateral damage" that is part of irregular warfare. He speaks, in a seemingly matter-of-fact way, of a Pashtun's three sons he killed in a fire fight with insurgents. Whether the young men were curious or foolish or in the wrong place at the wrong time Mennes does not make clear. He merely says that killing them was unavoidable.

 

After the fight has finished, however, Lt. Col. Mennes goes to the father's house to take responsibility for the deaths of the man's three sons and, according to the valley code, to make amends. As he has been instructed, Mennes tugs the man's beard and caresses his face. Humbling himself, Mennes strokes the distraught father's chest and shoulders. And so Mennes makes right with the clan, in a way that is completely foreign to American culture and with an outcome that for us begs credulity. How, in the end, can we have a plan and execute it in the midst of such an alien society? The experience of Brian Mennes is but one small example of why the Afghanistan experts who met with military reporters last week are dubious about a "new outlook" in this new American presidency. On the other hand, how can we not come up with a plan? Not only is the insurgency or insurgencies further destabilizing both Afghanistan and Pakistan and therefore threatening our own security. Also we are turning intelligent, gifted and honorable men like Brian Mennes into killers of sons. We had better have a good reason. We had better have a plan."

 

The insurgents are welcoming the 'surge" and more of us into the fray there, as they say there will then be more of us to kill. As this article indicates, our people must become more exposed in order to have a chance in succeeding. In order to win, we need a better strategy as good execution of a poor strategy will not do it for us.

[akhalteke]

If you are going to abandon the mission

 

What is the mission Scott?

 

Kev, shut the fuck up.

 

You talk big for a minion. The quote above is your own words.

 

Please inform me what "the mission" is. I honestly dont think you know.

 

I no longer feel the need to try and keep you informed as you would rather be a leg humping syncophant to the obamalammadingdongs.

[kevbone]

 

I no longer feel the need to try and keep you informed as you would rather be a leg humping syncophant to the obamalammadingdongs.

 

Nice….this is nice cop out bullshit answer given by a minion……anyone else?

[Serenity]

At least it's 50,000 people who aren't standing in an unemployment line.

[ivan]

At least it's 50,000 people who aren't standing in an unemployment line.

yeah, b/c that's why we should have a giant army

[pink]

At least it's 50,000 people who aren't standing in an unemployment line.

yeah, b/c that's why we should have a giant army

 

 

if it wasn't for giant armies ud be teaching home economics

[prole]

New marketing slogans for the Army:

'Cause You Can't Get A Job Anywhere Else.

Felons Welcome!

Earmarks Extrodinaire

Putting the pigs in Pork Spending

Welfare Without Guilt

Serve Your Country, Not at the Food Bank

Don't Worry, We're Not Really Looking for Him Anyway

[ivan]

 

if it wasn't for giant armies ud be teaching home economics

i don't understand - please explain

 

and econ was by far my worst subject, so it seems more likely i'd be teaching gym, for afterall:

 

those who can, do

those who can't, teach

those who can't teach, teach gym

 

[pink]

u teach history?

[tvashtarkatena]

 

I no longer feel the need to try and keep you informed as you would rather be a leg humping syncophant to the obamalammadingdongs.

 

Nice….this is nice cop out bullshit answer given by a minion……anyone else?

 

Gonna have to agree with KB, here. It's a really good question. I'd like to see our current mission in Iraq in writing and a source reference, too.

[kevbone]

At least it's 50,000 people who aren't standing in an unemployment line.

 

 

That is not much of a choice.....

 

Be at home with no money or income (but alive)....or have income but not be able to spend it because you just got blown up.

[ivan]

u teach history?

no i just show movies about war and stuff while sitting in the back of a darkened room and read the sports page...

[rob]

hey scott, r u still in the military? What ever happened to your "i refuse to speak negatively about the commander-in-chief" cop-out you used to use about G.W.Shrub?

 

Or are you out now?

[pink]

u teach history?

no i just show movies about war and stuff while sitting in the back of a darkened room and read the sports page...

 

 

so history has war in it?

[billcoe]

u teach history?

no i just show movies about war and stuff while sitting in the back of a darkened room and read the sports page...

 

OMG! And entire summers off too? I'm sportin' wood just thinking about that ...where do I apply? I could teach gym for sure.

[Fairweather]

New marketing slogans for the Army:

'Cause You Can't Get A Job Anywhere Else.

Felons Welcome!

Earmarks Extrodinaire

Putting the pigs in Pork Spending

Welfare Without Guilt

Serve Your Country, Not at the Food Bank

Don't Worry, We're Not Really Looking for Him Anyway

 

You know, Prole, someone should stuff a petrol-soaked rag into your face hole and light it. For an edu-debtor who refuses to work and wants society to pay all his bills, you sure know how to epitomize arrogance.

Edited February 27, 2009 by Fairweather

[pink]

hey scott, r u still in the military? What ever happened to your "i refuse to speak negatively about the commander-in-chief" cop-out you used to use about G.W.Shrub?

 

Or are you out now?

 

 

 

 

ask the oracle

Edited February 27, 2009 by pink

[ivan]

 

You know, Prole, someone should stuff a petrol-soaked rag into your face hole and light it..

 

funny - been teaching the french revolution the past week - having my kids recollect all the time some doorknob suggested shit like this as a solution to a societal problem - comparing it to "the terror" and other moments of the revolution - exactly how succesful is your proposal in improving a damn thing again?

[mec]

republicans versus democrats vs conservatives vs liberals vs independents vs who the hell cares. politics is all sh#t. necessary yes, but still sh#t. When one side takes over, the other side will keep thinking they were right. Then in awhile, another side will take over. It is a never ending cycle (at least it has been for the last 200+ years) that is part of the joys of being in a democracy. we can voice our opinions, and know that every 4 to 8 years things will change. Sometimes in the direction you want, and sometime in the direction you don't want. there is never going to be a president that pleases everyone, and only time will tell how respected they will end up being. And these opinions do change considerably over time...

[KaskadskyjKozak]

New marketing slogans for the Army:

'Cause You Can't Get A Job Anywhere Else.

Felons Welcome!

Earmarks Extrodinaire

Putting the pigs in Pork Spending

Welfare Without Guilt

Serve Your Country, Not at the Food Bank

Don't Worry, We're Not Really Looking for Him Anyway

 

You know, Prole, someone should stuff a petrol-soaked rag into your face hole and light it. For an edu-debtor who refuses to work and wants society to pay all his bills, you sure know how to epitomize arrogance.

 

New marketing slogan for the Army:

 

"Serve your country for peanuts, maybe lose a limb or your life, all to protect the freedoms of worthless fucktard marxist wanna-be's like comrade Prole."

 

 

[PhöQ]

baa

 

 

 

[Fairweather]

 

You know, Prole, someone should stuff a petrol-soaked rag into your face hole and light it..

 

funny - been teaching the french revolution the past week - having my kids recollect all the time some doorknob suggested shit like this as a solution to a societal problem - comparing it to "the terror" and other moments of the revolution - exactly how succesful is your proposal in improving a damn thing again?

 

A little background on my proposal for your consideration and like-outrage.

 

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/868443/1/Criminal_Irresponsibility

[No. 13 Baby]

New marketing slogan for the Army:

 

"Serve your country for peanuts, maybe lose a limb or your life, all to protect the freedoms of worthless fucktard marxist wanna-be's like comrade Prole."

 

Chickenhawk sez what?

[ivan]

A little background on my proposal for your consideration and like-outrage.

 

http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/868443/1/Criminal_Irresponsibility

i guess i'm confused then - a quick read of your thread, then a look at your first post in this one, would seem to indicate that you are both for and against these sorta modest proposals. perhaps you meant it in jest though, given prole's tar n' feathering suggestion.