Across the Aisle » David Isenberg

War’s Brave New World

David Isenberg — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:01:12 +0000

It’s a brave new world out there, but I don’t think it is the one Aldous Huxley had in mind when he wrote his famed book in 1932.

What Huxley gave us was a frightening vision of the future. And in one sense, though not the one Huxley was writing about, that vision is becoming reality. I refer to the expanding role of robots in war.

The most visible aspect of this is the use of aerial drones such as targeting Al Qaeda militants with Predator drone strikes. Predictably, some places, such as the Weekly Standard, think this fine and dandy, and worry only that we do not use them more for which they criticize President Obama. That is ironic as the President has authorized more drone attacks in the first year of his term in office than Bush did in his entire presidency.

But war is inherently unpredictable. One of the few ways we have of restraining its destructiveness is by having military personnel perform their duties in a framework of carefully wrought, time tested framework grounded in civic-military and ethical considerations. While pilots may sometimes be egomaniacal Top Guns they at least spend some time thinking about these things. But what happens when the man operating a Predator is just another technician, no different from any other journeyman such as an electrician or plumber? What happens when the use of deadly force is just another day at the office?

Boston Globe columnist H.D.S. Greenway noted that before 9/11, the CIA hesitated to strike bin Laden’s farm in Afghanistan because women and children might be killed. But as the war drags on the rules of engagement, rules against targeted assassination, whom to kill and not kill, have slipped, as they invariably do in all wars.

If that is too philosophical a consideration for you to ponder let’s consider the practical. Is the United States ready for the time when other nations use such technology? According to a Newsweek article by Peter Singer of the Brookings Institute who, last year, published the definitive book on the subject, “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century“ at least 40 other countries-from Belarus and Georgia to India, Pakistan, and Russia-have begun to build, buy, and deploy unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, showcasing their efforts at international weapons expos ranging from the premier Paris Air Show to smaller events in Singapore and Bahrain. In the last six months alone, Iran has begun production on a pair of weapons-ready surveillance drones, while China has debuted the Pterodactyl and Sour Dragon, rivals to America’s Predator and Global Hawk. All told, two thirds of worldwide investment in unmanned planes in 2010 will be spent by countries other than the United States.

And what happens when the weapons doing the killing are controlled by civilian agencies, as opposed to the armed forces? In January Hakimullah Mehsud, leader of the Pakistan Taliban, was killed by a missile fired an unmanned aircraft hovering over the Afghan-Pakistani border – but launched by an operator in the US. He was the mastermind of multiple suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan and was part of the suicide mission on December 30 at Khost, just across the border in Afghanistan, which killed seven CIA agents.

In the effort to get payback the United States launched 15 clinical drone attacks in which more than 100 people died along the border. Thus, for the first time ever, a civilian intelligence agency is manipulating robots from halfway around the world in a program of extrajudicial executions in a country with which Washington is not at war.

As Singer wrote last month:

Q. Are We at War in Pakistan ? (Or Is It Not a War Because We’re Only Using Drones?)

American unmanned systems have carried out more than 80 air strikes into Pakistan, more than we did with manned bombers in the opening round of the Kosovo War just a decade ago.

By the old standards, this would be a war. But why do we not view it as such? Is it because it is being run by the CIA and not the military? Is it because Congress never debated it? Is it because we view the whole thing as costless (to us)? Or, are the definitions changing — and what used to be war, isn’t anymore?

Furthermore, a cost-benefit analysis of the use of drones indicates that it may be less effective than thought. A study last October by the New American Foundation estimated concluded that, since January 2008, the American kill has included ”about 20 leaders of al-Qaeda, the Taliban and allied groups in addition to hundreds of lower-level militants and civilians. Under President Obama, the strikes have taken out at most [a] half-dozen militant leaders while also killing as many as 530 others – of those, around 250 to 400 are reported to have been lower-level militants, about three-quarters; and about a quarter appear to have been civilians.” In other words, about one-third of those killed were civilian.

Getting History Right

David Isenberg — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:35:44 +0000

I confess that I have been fantasizing. I realize that most people have moved on from Iraq to Afghanistan. But given the enormous toll paid both by Iraqis and Americans in terms of lives and money and overall social and cultural destruction I have been trying to imagine what it would look like if the United States actually undertook a fact based investigation into the decisions by the Bush Administration to invade Iraq in 2003.

By that I don’t mean the past investigations by special commissions or congressional committees into what the intelligence community knew or didn’t know, or what pressure they were under to cherry pick information. Rather I mean an investigation into what former President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and other cabinet officials knew and did, day by day, leading up to the invasion.

Fortunately, I don’t really have to imagine. Instead I can just look across the Atlantic to Great Britain. There they have been conducting an inquiry, officially launched 30 June 2009. The terms of reference of the Iraq Inquiry, also known as the Chilcot Inquiry, after its chairman Sir John Chilcot, state:

It will consider the period from the summer of 2001 to the end of July 2009, embracing the run-up to the conflict in Iraq, the military action and its aftermath. We will therefore be considering the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish, as accurately as possible, what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned.

Consider some of what has been revealed just during the past few weeks. Tony Blair privately assured President George Bush in letters written a year before the invasion of Iraq that Britain would “be there” in any US-led attack on the country.

Senior British diplomats said that regime change was being discussed by Blair in the US in 2002 even though, according to leaked documents, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, warned the then PM that military action aimed at regime change, as opposed to disarmament, would be unlawful.

Fresh evidence has emerged that Tony Blair’s discredited Iraqi arms dossier was “sexed up” on the instructions of Alastair Campbell, his communications chief, to fit with claims from the US administration that were known to be falseIntelligence outlining the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was taken out of context when it was used as part of the Government’s case for invading Iraq.

Sir David Omand, who was Mr Blair’s security co-ordinator, said that including the claim that Saddam had missiles that he could launch within 45 minutes in the now-infamous September 2002 dossier on Iraq was “asking for trouble“. If all the intelligence on Iraq had been published, the public reaction would have been “Is that it?”, he said.

Tens of thousands of secret documents form the core of the ongoing inquiry into the Iraq war. The inquiry also hinted that such documents showed British officials knew George Bush intended to invade Iraq even if it complied with the UN weapons inspections.

It is especially ironic that this investigation is taking place in Great Britain, the country that has D-Notices and an Official Secrets Act , not to mention it being the country that gave us the not so fictional concept of Big Brother.

Yet, the obvious point is that if Great Britain can do this so should the United States. The Obama Administration and the Democratic congress have refrained from doing so on the mistaken assumption that it would only antagonize out of power, but not out of venom, Republicans, like Dick Cheney, and make cooperation with Republicans impossible. News flash for the Obama administration. Cheney and Republicans are going to hate you no matter what you do, so you shouldn’t care. Concentrate on what is doing right, not what is politically expedient. No to do so is to dishonor the memories of all those killed in a war that did not have to happen.

The U.S. Really Is Doing a Heck of a Job, Thus Far

David Isenberg — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 13:42:53 +0000

Today marks one week since the magnitude 7.0 Jan. 12 earthquake hit Haiti. If there is anything in the world that, at least momentarily, brings people together it is the innate humanitarian impulse to help those who have been struck by natural catastrophe.

In this regard Haiti is no exception. Nations from around the world, not just the United States, are rushing supplies and various specialists to assist in search and rescue, provide food, water, and housing, and begin the effort to assist with what will, of necessity, have to be a long term recovery effort. Early estimates state that one third of Haiti’s nine million people have been affected by the quake. Already 20,000 bodies are estimated to have been recovered. The final toll will undoubtedly be far higher.

The United States, by virtue of its geographic proximity to Haiti, its long term involvement with the country, and its immense logistical capabilities is taking the lead role in coordinating relief efforts. No problem there; as the Haitian government has been almost as destroyed as the housing in Port au Prince.

In terms of domestic politics nobody thus far, aside from the usual rightwing whack jobs, such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are objecting to the U.S. rushing to the rescue. And U.S. efforts are significant. If President Bush had done for New Orleans what President Obama is doing for Haiti the Bush legacy would be significantly different.

This past weekend, in a striking example of bipartisanship, President Obama asked former Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush to spearhead private-sector fund-raising efforts.

Thus far, the U.S. military is doing a useful job. Whether it has done as much as it could or should will be a question that will doubtlessly be debated.

A three-star general, Lt. Gen. P. K. Keen, the deputy director of the military’s Southern Command, has been tapped to lead a new joint task force devoted to Haiti.

7,500 troops and four ships arrived in Haiti yesterday to join the about 5,000 U.S. military personnel already assisting on the ground and from ships nearby. Reportedly the bulk of the troops will operate off the ships, not on the ground.

Air Force special operations controllers set up an air-traffic control center. It was the beginning of an operation that, by Sunday, had unclogged one bottleneck preventing aid from reaching Haiti’s desperate population. By Sunday, the Air Force had landed some 300 planes, most of them laden with relief supplies.

The 82nd Airborne has established small posts around the city to protect food and water drops.

President Obama signed an executive order over the weekend allowing members of the reserves to be called up to support the relief efforts in Haiti.

The Navy hospital ship USS Comfort will arrive Wednesday. The ship has 250 beds and a 550-person medical team. Military leaders also are moving to assemble a 150-bed surgical hospital at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which will coordinate patient loads with the ship’s operating rooms.

The aircraft carrier U.S.S. Carl Vinson arrived last Friday. Its primary mission is using its 19 helicopters to ferry supplies onshore. But the carrier itself did not carry relief supplies.

Meanwhile the International Search and Rescue Team, fully equipped and self-sufficient for up to seven days in the field, deployed immediately with ten metric tons of tools and equipment, three tons of water, tents, advanced communication equipment and water purifying capability. They’re from Iceland.

The first elements of the Bataan Amphibious Ready Group reached Haiti yesterday. The four ships in the group are the USS Carter Hall, USS Gunston Hall, USS Fort McHenry and the USS Bataan.

But much more needs to be done and quickly. Already scatted looting andd fighting has broken out. Although given Haiti’s poor state befroe the quake it is a tribute to the Haitian character and spitit that there has not been more. Given that transportation in Haiti has been all but destroyed in Haiti promised aid cannot be delivered. In the meantime people live outdoors without shelter, sustenance or protection.

Unless the pace of aid distribution quickens, there could be mass violence as hundreds of thousands of people begin to compete for scarce resources. Given that Haitian police forces were not particularly robust to begin with security is going to have to depend on large part, at least in the short term, on U.S. military and the 9,000 member UN force, although the latter are said to be deeply unpopular. But the sooner that task can be tuned back to Haitians the better.

One thing to keep in mind is that Haiti is not all that different from where your or I live. Last week David Brooks, the conservative New York Times columnist, used the quake to argue against foreign aid.

But the truth is that everywhere in the world people will fight for survival when the situation becomes desperate. Wherever you live your city is just one natural disaster away from total chaos. Hurricane Katrina proved it.

The truth is most people aren’t prepared for disasters. They aren’t even prepared for a disruption in food and electricity lasting more than 48 hours. Almost nobody has spare food, water, emergency first aid supplies or the ability to physically defend themselves against aggressors. They are betting their lives on the idea that their government will save them if something goes wrong.

The people of Haiti are now learning what the people of New Orleans already know: Your government won’t save you. In a real crisis, you are on your own.

What Not to Do About Yemen

David Isenberg — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:40:28 +0000

Sometimes I wonder if Al-Qaeda sympathizers have infiltrated America’s right wing.

Because ever since the news broke of the Christmas Day attempt by 23-year old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried and failed to blow up a U.S. airliner over Detroit using explosives he had smuggled past airport security in Amsterdam, Netherlands and had reportedly joined a Yemeni affiliate of al Qaeda which trained and equipped him with explosives and directed him to attack that plane headed for America, there have been calls for America to escalate American involvement in Yemen. People are now saying that broader and more clearly visible retaliatory military action must be taken.

As Glen Greenwald wrote in Salon:

Actually, if you count our occupation of Iraq, our twice-escalated war in Afghanistan, our rapidly escalating bombing campaigns in Pakistan and Yemen, and various forms of covert war involvement in Somalia, one could reasonably say that we’re fighting five different wars in Muslim countries — or, to use the NYT’s jargon, “five fronts” in the “Terror War” (Obama yesterday specifically mentioned Somalia and Yemen as places where, euphemistically, “we will continue to use every element of our national power”). Add to those five fronts the “crippling” sanctions on Iran many Democratic Party luminaries are now advocating, combined with the chest-besting threats from our Middle East client state that the next wars they fight against Muslims will be even “harsher” than the prior ones, and it’s almost easier to count the Muslim countries we’re not attacking or threatening than to count the ones we are. Yet this still isn’t enough for America’s right-wing super-warriors, who accuse the five-front-war-President of “an allergy to the concept of war.”

Uh, excuse me, but earth calling the Republican Party and Fox News. What exactly do you think the U.S. has been doing in Yemen for the past several years? Sitting down and playing tiddlywinks?

The U.S. has been backing airstrikes against suspected Al Qaeda members in Yemen for some time.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which claimed responsibility for the attempted attack on a US airliner bound for Detroit, is led by a Yemeni who was once a close aide to Osama bin Laden. The group formed in January 2009, when leader Naser Abdel Karim al-Wahishi announced a merger between operatives from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The group has been blamed for a series of attacks in Yemen, including an assault against the US embassy in Sanaa, and suicide bombings targeting South Korean visitors. Recently, the group indicated it was ready to take its fight beyond Yemen.

Reportedly, Abdulmutallab claims that he was one of many bombers being groomed by the Yemeni al Qaeda affiliate to attack American-bound aircraft. If this is true then is failed attempt is beneficial insofar as it helps the United States to focus on a real threat.

None of this is to say that the U.S. should be complacent about the state of its domestic security. The, thankfully, failed, attempt has highlighted many deficiencies. Contrary to initial remarks, which, were subsequently recanted, by Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary, the system did not work. As she later noted, it “failed miserably.” The suspect was allowed to fly to the United States on a valid visa without extra screening even though he was listed in a terrorism database, — thanks to this father who had taken the extraordinary step of warning American authorities on Nov. 19 about his son — bought a one-way ticket with cash and checked no luggage.

Clearly, there are still gaps in coordination between the State Department, the National Counterterrorism Center, and the Department of Homeland Security. To use the now familiar expression there are still numerous dots not being connected.

Yet while the U.S. certainly needs to assist the Yemen government in dismantling this group it is important to take steps that are appropriate and don’t worsen the situation. Specialists believe the Al Qaeda fighters number there in the low hundreds. For that you don’t invade a country or launch a bombing campaign. We already did that in Iraq and, for a time, handed Al-Qaeda a recruiting windfall.

Yemen is a complicated country. As Rami G. Khouri wrote a few days ago:

Yemen has transformed itself into a place where three different political or military contests are underway: the government vs. the Houthis, some secessionists in the south, and a growing Al-Qaeda network. Meanwhile the Saudi Arabian and American armed forces are directly engaged in warfare against two of them — Houthis and Al-Qaeda — and the Iranian government is increasingly weighing in on the side of the Houthis.

Here in one package, at the end of this year we have all the major tension points of the contemporary Middle East converging in a single time and place — Al-Qaeda vs. everyone in the world, Iran vs. Arabs, the United States vs. Al-Qaeda, Shiites vs. Sunnis, rich Arabs vs. poor Arabs, and the failing centralized modern Arab security state vs. it indigenous tendency to disintegrate into tribal or regional units.

The Yemen government is also fragile. Its interests and those of the U.S. are not the same. The U.S. now views Yemen through the prism of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). But Yemen is much more concerned with its own domestic unrest. While, thanks to financial assistance, and U.S. pressure, its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh has allowed more strikes against AQAP he has done so under duress and against his better judgment, Being seen to cooperate too closely with the US will not do him no favors at all, but these are difficult times for him and he has to tread a fine line between appeasing the US and trying to hold the country together.

What you do is what we are already doing. Have your intelligence agencies and military special operations teams help Yemen, provide intelligence, training and weapons ane economic assistance.

Dong more than that risks worsening the situation. The recent US-sponsored airstrikes there serve as an example. They appear to have missed several of the targeted individuals and killed dozens of innocent people, including women and children – which inevitably inflames anti-western sentiment. Yemen does need outside help in dealing with al-Qaida but the less visible it is, the better.

As the Guardian noted yesterday:

Whatever else is done, it’s important to distinguish between measures that benefit Yemen and those that benefit the regime of its president, Ali Abdullah Saleh. The worst of all outcomes would be to be perceived as propping up Saleh at a time when his power is clearly ebbing away. Saleh, who rose through the army, has ruled northern Yemen since 1978 and both parts of the country since unification of north and south in 1990. He is now in his last presidential term and has to step down by 2013, when he will be 71, unless he changes the constitution – a move that is not impossible but in the present circumstances would probably cause uproar.

Former Vice president Dick Cheney claims that this incident and others goes to show that President Obama doesn’t realize America is at war. I’d say that it is Cheney that is out of touch. When you fight a war both sides suffer losses. American has been remarkably lucky since the 9/11 attacks not to suffer another major attack on American soil. But that luck in unlikely to hold forever. Sooner or later an attack is going to be successful, even if American was devoting its resources to fulfilling the Cheney one percent doctrine, i.e. fighting a low probability, high impact attack.

Cheney might also want to remember that it is, at least in part, thanks to the Iraq war he championed that Al Qaeda has had a chance to regroup in Yemen.

Goodbye to 2009: The year in review

David Isenberg — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:10:42 +0000

This is my last post for 2009 I thought I would write about Afghanistan but on second thought I will, no doubt, be doing that quite a lot during 2010. Thanks to the Obama Administration’s surge strategy Afghanistan will, from a blogging viewpoint, be the gift that keeps on giving.

So, as we contemplate whether 2010 will be better or worse let’s take a moment to consider 2009. In the spirit of Dave Barry’s classic annual year in review column let’s acknowledge, albeit with some poetic license commentary by moi, a few of the significant events that made, however briefly, the headlines.

Although it started on Dec. 28 2008 the month of January saw massive Israeli air strikes and a ground force invasion of the Gaza Strip. Heavy ﬁghting took place in Gaza City between the Israeli forces and Hamas. At least 1300 Palestinians were killed. On Jan. 17 Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a unilateral ceaseﬁre in the Gaza Strip, declaring that Israel has achieved the goals it set when launching the military operation. On Jan. 21 Israel completes its troop withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Also that month President Barack Obama signed executive orders closing the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, within a year; closing the CIA’s secret prisons; requiring a review of military trials for terror suspects; and requiring all interrogations to follow the non-coercive methods speciﬁed in the Army Field Manual.

Of course, nobody knew back then that the camp would end up in Illinois. One can only hope that the inmates are not too acclimated to the Caribbean climate to adjust to a midwest winter.

On Jan 27 Hama declared that it previously was just kidding and broke the ceaseﬁre by attacking an Israeli frontier patrol. Israel immediately responded that it lacks a sense of humor and renewed its air strikes on the Gaza Strip border with Egypt.

On Feb. 3 Iran launched its ﬁrst domestically built satellite into orbit. Iran stated that the satellite is meant for research and telecommunications purposes, but Western states express concern that the technology could be used in the development of ballistic missiles. The U.S. intelligence community, estimating that Iran will show the same swift progress with its missiles that it did with its nuclear program, predicted the next flight will be in 2040.

On Feb. 6, renewing their classic rivalry, a British and a French nuclear submarine collided in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Political leaders from both countries sighed in relief that it was merely submarines and not their respective football fans that collided.

On Feb. 17 President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of an additional 17,000 military personnel to Afghanistan. The troops will be deployed to ‘meet urgent security needs’ in southern Afghanistan. Later in the year President Obama deploys 30,000 more troops to meet “super duper double urgent” security needs in Afghanistan.

On March 15 two US female journalists, together with their Chinese guide, are detained by North Korean soldiers at the China–North Korea border when reporting on North Korean refugees in northeastern China. In June the two women are sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. On 4 August the two are pardoned and released following mediation by former US President Bill Clinton, who stood in for the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Rev. Jackson subsequently mediated between Bill and Hillary Clinton.

On March 19 China and Viet Nam agree to set up a hotline between their foreign ministries, and to focus on negotiations to solve the outstanding maritime issues in order to maintain peace and stability in the South China Sea. Britain and France send representatives from their submarine branches to offer their expertise.

On March 24 French Defence Minister Hervé Morin announces that France will compensate those suffering health problems linked to radiation and resulting from the more than 200 nuclear weapon tests that France carried out from 1960 to 1996 in Algeria and Polynesia. Whether any radiation was the result of a French-British submarine collision remains unknown.

On March 27 US President Barack Obama presents the new US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke is appointed the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Citizens of both countries, remembering Amb. Holbrooke’s splendid efforts in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, riot in the streets.

On April 1 the new Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, states that the Israeli Government is not bound by the commitments made by its predecessors, such as the 2007 Annapolis Agreement for a two-state solution of the Israeli–Palestinian conﬂict. Lieberman subsequently says April Fools.

On May 25 North Korea carries out an underground nuclear weapon test in Kilju, Hamgyong province. The U.S. National Rifle Association condemns the test as an attempt by godless communists to violate American’s god given second amendment rights.

Following the presidential election in Iran on 12 June, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is reelected, hundreds of thousands of people take to the streets to protest against what they perceive as a fraudulent election. At least eight people are killed and several wounded by security forces in the largest demonstrations since the 1979 Iranian revolution. Senator Lieberman, saying you can’t make democracy without breaking a few eggs, says this shows why the U.S. needs to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities.

On June 14 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces that Israel is ready to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state as long as it is demilitarized and the Palestinians accept Israel as a Jewish state with Jerusalem as the capital. Foreign Minister Lieberman reminds people that this is not an April Fools joke.

On June 30 the withdrawal of US combat troops from cities and villages in Iraq is completed and the security duties are handed over to the new Iraqi forces. Approximately 131,000 US troops remain in Iraq. The remaining quarter million private military and security contractors working for the U.S., partying in the Green Zone, start crying in their beer.

On July 2 the US Army launches a major offensive against Taliban militants in southwestern Afghanistan, involving 4000 US soldiers and 650 Afghan troops. It is the ﬁrst such operation under US President Barack Obama and differs from previous operations as the US forces will remain in the secured areas and build bases to provide security for the local population. Halliburton offers to help build the bases. Blackwater offer to help provide security. The residents of Helmand province start fleeing the country.

On July 16 British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issues a statement on nuclear non-proliferation together with the new British strategy, Road to 2010, outlining how the UK will play a leading role in tackling nuclear issues. Manchester United offers to tackle a British nuclear submarine to help promote nuclear disarmament.

On Sep. 25 US President Barack Obama, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown accuse Iran of building a secret underground uranium enrichment facility. President Ahmadinejad denounces the accusation as a lie, saying he was spending all his free time cracking down on democracy protesters.

On September 28 the 2006 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Convention on Small Arms, Light Weapons, Their Ammunition and Other Related Materials enters into force following Benin’s deposit of the ninth instrument of ratiﬁcation. The NRA denounces convention as an attempt to take god-fearing American’s guns away.

On Oct. 16 the UN Human Rights Council endorses the recommendations made in Richard Goldstone’s report on the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip. The report accuses both Israel and Palestinian militants of war crimes and demands that the parties investigate the allegations, or the cases will be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Sen. Lieberman calls for the bombing of the United Nations.

On Oct. 17 the Pakistani Army launches a massive air and ground offensive against al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels in South Waziristan. At least 20,000 people ﬂee the region. Amb. Holbrooke announces that this is proof President Obama’s strategy for the region is working.

On October 30 the UN First Committee agrees to set a timetable for the negotiation of an arms trade treaty. A UN conference on an arms trade treaty will be held in 2012 to elaborate a legally binding instrument for the transfer of conventional arms. Lockheed Martin, Smith & Wesson, Colt Industries, and Glock file a complaint with the Human Right Commission, claiming that liberal pinkos are imperiling their economic livelihood. Bob Geldorf announces the will organize a concert for laid off weapons brokers and promises a special guest appearance by Viktor Bout, currently enjoying the hospitality of the Thai government.

Afghanistan: I don’t believe in miracles

David Isenberg — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:12:43 +0000

Unlike my fellow blogger Matt Rojansky I do not support sending more troops to Afghanistan. Doing so is the geopolitical equivalent of Newton’s third law of motion, i.e., “To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Sending more troops only strengthens the Taliban, and non-Taliban Afghans, especially the Pashtuns, who just don’t want foreigners in their lands.

Yet despite all the attempts to pretend that there is some huge debate in the White House about whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan there has never been any serious question that the Obama administration will not do so. The only question is how many.

After all, can you remember the last time a newly elected president decided to withdraw troops from a war he inherited? Neither can I. In fact, right now the insider wisdom seems to be that Obama is settling on around 32- to 35,000 more troops, which is over 80 percent of what Gen. McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, asked for in his strategy report.

That said let’s hope someone in the Obama administration is thinking about other issues. For example, putting aside the future ultimate sacrifices measured in lives lost and physically and mentally wounded, the financial costs will start mounting up.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the Pentagon publicly estimates it will cost $500,000 a year for every additional service member sent to the war zone. Obama’s budget experts size it up at twice that much. These costs will be more notable since, unlike the Bush administration, Obama promised in his campaign not to tuck war costs away, off federal budget books.

There is a certain double standard at work among commentators on this issue. E.J. Dionne Jr. wrote in the Washington Post that:

Advocates of a big counterinsurgency strategy are offended by anyone who raises the financial costs of our commitments. Typically, those most angered by talk of the immense expense of these wars are the very conservatives who bemoan America’s fiscal condition and the dangers of long-term deficits — yet had no qualms over starting two wars and cutting taxes at the same time.

The costs are worrying Obama and getting under the skin of congressional Democrats tired of attacks on their fiscal credentials. In anticipation of the president’s decision, a group of House Democrats led by Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) introduced a bill last week requiring the president to set a surtax to pay for war costs in Afghanistan.

“As we’ve struggled to pass health care reform, we’ve been told that we have to pay for the bill,” the Democrats said in a statement. “Regardless of whether one favors the war or not, if it is to be fought, it ought to be paid for.” The proposal may never become law, but it sends a clear message: Any troop increase Obama proposes will be wildly unpopular with a large share of those who have been his strongest backers — and most popular with those whom he cannot count on for support in any other area.

Yet, one can’t do counterinsurgency on the cheap. Anyone who seeks to economize will only get soldiers and Marines killed. Just read this Newsweek article where the fathers of two soldiers killed in Afghanistan weigh in on how theirs sons were tasked to do more with less.

Finding the balance is just one of many difficult choices the Obama administration must make on Afghanistan. Making the right choice every time will be nothing short of miraculous. Personally, I don’t believe in miracles.

Put Up or Shut Up

David Isenberg — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:26:29 +0000

One will not be able to celebrate Veterans Day this week without considering the tragic killing of 13 and wounding over 30 at the Army base at Fort Hood, Texas last Friday. The shootings by U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan rightfully strike people as particularly horrific. There is something about soldiers who are about to be deployed to war zones being shot at by one of their own that is particularly obscene; especially when that man is a psychiatrist, a medical professional who operates under the code of do no harm.

Yet whatever the ensuing investigation uncovers about the motivations of Maj. Hasan we must also face up to the fact that the American military has a significant mental health issue.

When I last wrote about this in September I noted that the psychic casualties are staggering. The situation has not gotten better.

The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that military leaders acknowledge rampant psychiatric problems in their midst. According to the Army, the suicide rate among soldiers in Iraq is five times that seen in the Persian Gulf War and 11% higher than during Vietnam. The Army reported 133 suicides in 2008, the most ever. In January of this year, the 24 suicides reported by the Army outnumbered U.S. combat-related deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Marine Corps also reported an increase in suicides in 2008, to 41. The Army and Marine Corps have provided most of the troops in the two wars.

Ironically, Hasan had been chosen to be part of an ambitious plan to treat U.S. troops in Afghanistan who need psychological counseling where counselors are often not available. As a result, the Pentagon is flying record numbers of therapists and other mental health workers into combat areas.

USA Today reported yesterday that where psychologically damaged troops in far-flung places cannot reach a therapist, the military now flies therapists to them in numbers not seen before.

Col. Carl Castro, a psychologist and director of Army Military Operational Medicine, says “flying mental health care providers exclusively to service members who need help is unprecedented. It’s almost like the EMTs (emergency medical technicians) that you see on the interstate when they block the road and land the helicopter. It’s just never been done.

And now we must face up to the fact that many of those in the military mental health community charged with provided treatment to the afflicted are suffering their own mental stresses and traumas. Even if one does not accept that mental health professionals can experience their own post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) by treating those who do, it is certainly the case that good counseling and support for those mental health providers is critically important. And already we are seeing reporting that the military has failed in this regard, just as it has often failed to help veterans suffering physical and mental wounds.

Salon reported Sunday that with the U.S. fighting two wars, an acute shortage of trained personnel has left therapists emotional drained and overworked, with limited time to prepare for their own war deployments.

A military mental health task force in 2007 expressed concerned about the stress on nondeployed mental health personnel because of the shortage, which it said was leading to high attrition rates. “A vicious cycle has formed that will probably continue to worsen before it improves,” the report said.

Bob Herbert put it quite eloquently in his New York Times column on Sunday when he wrote:

The rest of us need to look very closely at the stress beyond belief that is being endured by so many other men and women in the armed forces — men and women who are serving gallantly and with dignity, who have not taken out their frustrations on one another, and who deserve better from the broader society.

Simply stated, we cannot continue sending service members into combat for three tours, four tours, five tours and more without paying a horrendous price in terms of the psychological well-being of the troops and their families, and the overall readiness of the armed forces to protect the nation.

The breakdowns are already occurring and will only get worse as the months and years pass and we remain engaged in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. None of this is the military’s fault. There have not been nearly enough people willing to serve in the all-volunteer armed forces to properly staff two wars that have already gone on for the better part of a decade.

I spent some time on the West Coast recently interviewing doctors and researchers studying the enormous problem of troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq with some form of mental health disorder, most commonly depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D. The caseloads are off the charts, and very often the P.T.S.D. or depression (or both) are accompanied by substance abuse, problems with anger management, domestic violence and family breakdown.

These are not weak men and women we are talking about. This is the toll that the horror of combat, especially repeated doses of it, takes on people — even those who are young, physically fit and mentally sound.

The same day former U.S. senator and Vietnam veteran Max Cleland, who lost both legs and an arm in that war, had an op-ed in the New York Times. He wrote:

When we are at war, America spends billions on missiles, tanks, attack helicopters and such. But the wounded warriors who will never fight again tend to be put on the back burner.

This is inexcusable, and it comes with frightening moral costs. There are estimates that 35 percent of the soldiers who fought in Iraq will suffer post-traumatic stress disorder. I’m sure the numbers for Afghanistan are similar. Researchers have found that nearly half of those returning with the disorder have suicidal thoughts. Suicide among active-duty soldiers is on pace to hit a record total this year. More than 1.7 million soldiers have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine that some 600,000 of them will have crippling memories, trapped in a vivid and horrible past from which they can’t seem to escape.

It is time for America to put up or shut up. Either it cares about its military men and women who are making unbelievable sacrifices or it doesn’t. If it does it will start putting its money where its mental health mouth is. And if not, then it can continue doing just what it is doing now.

Once more unto the Afghanistan breach, dear friends, once more

David Isenberg — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 06:54:55 +0000

I really, really, did not want to blog about Afghanistan again, after doing so in my last post. There are, after all, other places and issues to discuss. But it is not every day that one has a leaked assessment by the top U.S. general in Afghanistan discussing in unsparing terms past U.S. progress, or lack thereof, and what is necessary in the future, at least in his view, to achieve mission success.

Given that the time for the Obama administration to put off making a decision on what to do in Afghanistan is diminishing the assessment is as unvarnished and stark of the status quo and choices available to it, as to what to do in the future, as we are likely to have for some time.

So, now that the Pentagon released a declassified version of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s assessment which includes minor deletions of material that officials said could compromise future operations, as opposed to the one marked “confidential” that the Washington Post had originally obtained, let us simply ponder the significance of some of the passages. I comment below each excerpt. Be advised, I unavoidably go long on this post.

The situation in Afghanistan is serious; neither success nor failure can be taken for granted. Although considerable effort and sacrifice have resulted in some progress, many indicators suggest the overall situation is deteriorating. We face not only a resilient and growing insurgency; there is also a crisis of confidence among Afghans — in both their government and the international community – that undermines our credibility and emboldens the insurgents. Further, a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents.

Give credit to Gen. McChrystal for being bluntly honest. To address just one aspect of the above, which the report never really addresses, how is the Afghan’s people crisis of confidence in their government going to improve, when their own government can’t hold an honest election? Or as he says on the next page, “However, progress is hindered by the dual threat of a resilient insurgency and a crisis of confidence in the government and the international coalition. To win their support, we must protect the people from both of these threats.”

The stakes in Afghanistan are high. NATO’s Comprehensive Strategic Political Military Plan and President Obama’s strategy to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat at Qaeda and prevent their return to Afghanistan have laid out a dear path of what we must do. Stability in Afghanistan is an imperative; if the Afghan government falls to the Taliban – or has insufficient capability to counter transnational terrorists – Afghanistan could again become a base for terrorism, with obvious implications for regional stability.

Let’s be clear on this point. Even if we could wave a magic wand and prevent Afghanistan from ever again being a safe haven for Al Qaeda it would not mean the end of Al Qaeda. Since the Sep. 11 attacks Al-Qaeda has both devolved and regrouped. It is now as much an ideology as an organized network. As such it no longer needs Afghanistan to survive or to be able to carry off future attacks.

NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (lSAF) requires a new strategy that is credible to, and sustainable by, the Afghans. This new strategy must also be properly resourced and executed through an integrated civilian-military counterinsurgency campaign that earns the support of the Afghan people and provides them with a secure environment.

More on this point later but just how many years has ISAF been operating with an ineffective strategy? Has it not been obvious, long before Obama won election, for some time it was not working?

This is a different kind of fight. We must conduct classic counterinsurgency operations in an environment that is uniquely complex. Three regional insurgencies have intersected with a dynamic blend of local power struggles in a country damaged by 30 years of conflict. This makes for a situation that defies simple solutions or quick fixes. Success demands a comprehensive counterinsurgency (COIN) campaign.

Isn’t part of the problem that many U.S. military commanders thought they were doing exactly that, i.e. conducting classic counterinsurgency operations? Of course, they never were. Because, as this post by William Lind at Defense and the National Interest notes, classic counterinsurgency doctrine says we need hundreds of thousands more troops in Afghanistan.

And, by definition, COIN presumes the functioning of an effective state. Lind writes, “Is there a state in Afghanistan? At times, the report appears to assume a state; elsewhere, it speaks of the Afghan state’s weaknesses. It never addresses the main fact, namely that at present there is no state, and under the current Afghan government there is no prospect of creating one.”

And if there is no effective COIN how long will it take for the U.S. to be proficient at developing a relevant one for Afghanistan and implementing it? The lessons learned in Iraq cannot just be moved over to Afghanistan. It takes time to train officers and troops to learn and implement a new doctrine. Just distributing a new field manual that Gen. David Petraeus, the head of the U.S. Central Command, helped co-author is unlikely to be sufficient.

Interestingly, as a Foreign Policy blog notes:

Sending Petraeus to rally British support makes sense, but it makes me wonder why the Obama administration hasn’t used Petraeus — certainly the most well-known military officer in the country and a bona fide pop-culture icon — to pitch the Afghanistan strategy to the U.S. public.

The media-savvy general seemed to be everywhere during the later Bush years defending the Iraq surge. But Petraeus has been out of the spotlight lately and the job of “selling” Afghanistan seems to have been left to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen and the previously unknown Stan McChrystal. With the Pentagon worried about declining public support for the war, it seems odd that they haven’t pulled out the big guns, so to speak.

Again, to quote from the assessment:

Second, and more importantly, we face both a short and long-term fight. The long-term fight will require patience and commitment, but I believe the short-term fight will be decisive. Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.

Let’s say for the sake of illustration that President Obama makes a decision to send more troops in the next month, although it is unlikely to happen that quickly. In fact the Washington Post reported Sunday that President Obama has not set a deadline for determining a new strategy or for committing more troops to the war in Afghanistan. Furthermore, his closest advisors seem deeply divided over what to do. The Washington Post reported Sunday that beyond Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who has advocated an alternative strategy to the troop buildup, other presidential advisers sound dubious about more troops, including Rahm Emanuel, the chief of staff, and Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, according to people who have spoken with them. At the same time, Mr. Obama is also hearing from more hawkish figures, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Richard Holbrooke, the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

By the time troops have gone through notification, training, deployment to theater and to their eventual stationing in various Afghan locales they will have, what, maybe half a year. Isn’t at that point too late?

As formidable as the threat may be, we make the problem harder. ISAF is a conventional force that is poorly configured for COIN, inexperienced in local languages and culture, and struggling with challenges inherent to coalition warfare. These intrinsic disadvantages are exacerbated by our current operational culture and how we operate.

Pre-occupied with protection of our own forces, we have operated in a manner that distances us — physically and psychologically — from the people we seek to protect. In addition, we run the risk of strategic defeat by pursuing tactical wins that cause civilian casualties or unnecessary collateral damage. The insurgents cannot defeat us militarily; but we can defeat ourselves.

And apparently, despite all the blood and treasure spent thus far, we and our allies have been doing a very good job of it

Our campaign in Afghanistan has been historically under-resourced and remains so today. Almost every aspect of our collective effort and associated resourcing has lagged a growing insurgency – historically a recipe for failure in COIN. Success will require a discrete “jump” to gain the initiative, demonstrate progress in the short term, and secure long-term support.

Yet, even if we provide “proper resources” success is far from certain. McChrystal writes later on, “A ‘properly-resourced’ strategy provides the means deemed necessary to accomplish the mission with appropriate and acceptable risk. In the case of Afghanistan, this level of resourcing is less than the amount that is required to secure the whole country. By comparison, a ‘fully-resourced’ strategy could achieve low risk, but this would be excessive in the final analysis. Some areas are more consequential for the survival of GIRoA than others.”

So, even if we proper, not full, resources (which is code for both more military and civilian bodies– General McChrystal is expected to ask for as many as 40,000 additional troops — it will mean leaving parts of Afghanistan on their own. Or as William Lind wrote:

In a curious passage, the report says, on page 2-20,

The greater resources (ISAF requires) will not be sufficient to achieve success, but will enable implementation of the new strategy. Conversely, inadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced.

Here we encounter the report’s most dangerous failing. It confuses the strategic and the operational levels of war. In fact, the report does not offer a new strategy, but a new operational-level plan. How the war is fought, i.e. by following classic counter-insurgency doctrine, is operational, not strategic.

America must find a new strategy, since the current strategy depends on an Afghan state that does not exist. But the report offers no new strategy. The passage on page 2-20 thus ends up saying, “If you don’t give us more troops, we will fail. But you shouldn’t give us more troops unless we adopt a new strategy, which we don’t have. And even if you do give us the troops we want for the new strategy we haven’t got, they will not be enough to achieve success.” This reveals utter intellectual confusion.

In fact, Gen. McChrystal’s assessment may mark the beginning of the end of U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan. The Small Wars Journal blog has this to say:

McChrystal also calls for gaining military initiative over the Taliban over the next 12 months. Since the Taliban can easily go to ground without penalty during that time, the United States is unlikely to be able to visibly achieve this condition either. In theory, a sustained counterinsurgency campaign could gradually improve these problem areas. But it is very likely too late in the Washington political game to sustain the effort required. Obama and his team are thus likely to conclude that the counterinsurgency campaign McChrystal calls for in his report is impractical and should be abandoned as an option.

Every war is different of course but sometimes parallels are instructive. While it is easy to dismiss comparisons to Vietnam as the obsession of the 60s generation there are points worth considering. As Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times:

Though he came to the presidency declaring Afghanistan a “war of necessity,” circumstances have since changed. While the Taliban thrives there, Al Qaeda’s ground zero is next-door in nuclear-armed Pakistan. Last month’s blatantly corrupt, and arguably stolen, Afghanistan election ended any pretense that Hamid Karzai is a credible counter to the Taliban or a legitimate partner for America in a counterinsurgency project of enormous risk and cost. Indeed, Karzai, whose brother is a reputed narcotics trafficker, is a double for Ngo Dinh Diem, the corrupt South Vietnamese president whose brother also presided over a vast, government-sanctioned criminal enterprise in the early 1960s. And unlike Kennedy, whose C.I.A. helped take out the Diem brothers, Obama doesn’t have a coup in his toolbox.

…

Obama’s decision, whichever it is, will demand all the wisdom and political courage he can muster. If he adds combat troops, he’ll be extending a deteriorating eight-year-long war without a majority of his country or his own party behind him. He’ll have to explain why more American lives should be yoked to the Karzai “government.” He’ll have to be honest in estimating the cost. (The Iraq war, which the Bush administration priced at $50 to $60 billion, is at roughly $1 trillion and counting.) He will have to finally ask recession-battered Americans what his predecessor never did: How much — and what — are you willing to sacrifice in blood and treasure for the mission?

This is going to be a pivotal, perhaps seminal decision, for President Obama. None of his choices are great. In the end it may come down to a least worst decision. Given the stakes he is correct in refusing to be rushed. Nevertheless the clock is ticking.

Be Careful for What You Ask For Because You Just Might Get It

David Isenberg — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 08:12:45 +0000

Today let me join other PSA bloggers, such as Chris Preble and Brian Vogt who have recently written on Afghanistan.

Now that Iraq is no longer a geopolitical black hole, sucking all political discussion and media coverage into its event horizon, commentary on Afghanistan seems to be everywhere. In fact, it is not. The fact is that after nearly eight years of fighting there should be far more. Indeed, during the 2008 presidential campaign it was Barack Obama who said the United States should concentrate on Afghanistan. So now we are and everyone is making up for years of lost time.

But before we go any further perhaps we should take a moment to consider some of the ongoing costs and I don’t mean budgetary. I know it is not fashionable to do this; that the SOP among the elite is to focus on big picture national and international security impacts and realist politics but for just one moment, especially as a veteran, I say screw that. So, let’s remember some of the most recent:

1st Lt. Tyler E. Parten, 24, of Arkansas, died Sept. 10 in Konar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when insurgents attacked his unit using rocket-propelled grenades and small arms fire.

Lance Cpl. Christopher S. Fowlkes, 20, of Gaffney, S.C., died Sept. 10 from wounds sustained Sept. 3 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Sgt. Youvert Loney, 28, of Pohnpei, Micronesia, died Sept. 5 in Abad, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his vehicle using small arms and recoilless rifle fires.

Petty Officer 3rd Class James R. Layton, 22, of Riverbank, Calif., died Sept. 8 in Kunar province, Afghanistan, while supporting combat operations.

Capt. Joshua S. Meadows, 30, of Bastrop, Texas, died Sept. 5 while supporting combat operations in Farah province, Afghanistan.

Staff Sgt. Michael C. Murphrey, 25, of Snyder, Texas, died Sept. 6 in Paktika province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device.

There will be many more to come. Okay, now I return you to the establishment approved method of discourse, bloodless and emotionless

Right now the Obama Administration reminds me of the old saying, be careful for what you ask for because you just might get it. You wanted more resources devoted to Afghanistan? Okay, you have it, and will be getting more of it, because despite all the public handwringing, nobody really expects the Administration not to send more troops, beyond the additional 21,000 they deployed earlier this year.

Before going any further let’s remember that, thanks President’s Bush’s invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan is still regarded as the “good war,” i.e., the war we have to fight, as opposed to the one we chose to fight. This is, however, a false choice. In a surprisingly good op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, not known for running thoughtful, non-polemical pieces, Fouad Ajami wrote:

This distinction between a war of choice (Iraq) and a war of necessity (Afghanistan) has become canonical to American liberalism. But we should dispense with that distinction, for it is both morally false and intellectually muddled. No philosophy of just and unjust wars will support it. It was amid the ferocious attack on the American project in Iraq that there was born the idea of Afghanistan as the “good war.” This was the club with which the Iraq war was battered. This was where that binary division was set up: The good war of necessity in the mountains of Afghanistan, the multilateral war born of a collective NATO decision—versus George W. Bush’s war of choice in Iraq, fought in defiance of the opinions of allies who had been with us in the aftermath of 9/11, and whose goodwill we squandered in the cruel streets of Fallujah and the deserts of Anbar.

Let’s just throw out a few questions. I confess I don’t know the answers but they merit consideration.

If a successful counterinsurgency strategy is at least partially predicated on the ability of a legitimate government to protect its own people what does it mean when, as this New York Times op-ed asked, in the recent Afghanistan presidential election, the vote was plagued by so much fraud and violence, and had such low turnout, that it is inconceivable the Afghan people will regard the winner and incumbent, Hamid Karzai, as a legitimate leader?

Speaking of counterinsurgency how likely is it that the current doctrine will work? Richard A. Clarke and Steven Simon wrote:

A strong Afghan national army would mean doubling the number of trained Afghan military personnel that the US is now struggling to field. According to metrics developed by Gen. David Petraeus, a counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan would require 1.3 million troops for a decade. That is five times the size of US, NATO, and Afghan government forces today. No one thinks this is feasible and we are not attempting to do so. A classic counter-insurgency strategy therefore is not in the cards.

It has been reported that the United States needs to stay for at least three more years to sufficiently train up the Afghan Army and National Police to handle fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But the way things are going with the police that might be a fantasy. Anup Kaphle reports in the Atlantic that:

the plan to funnel more money into training and equipping the Afghan National Police has raised questions about the efficacy of the program. Last year, the non-partisan U.S. Government Accountability Office found that at least 75 percent of the more than 400 Afghan National Police units then in operation were still incapable of running their operations independently, despite some $10 billion having been spent on police mentoring and training since 2001.

Bringing the Afghan National Police up to a level where they can defend not only themselves but the areas under their jurisdiction is as yet little more than a distant hope. Someone like Abdullah will only fight loyally with the police so long as he can support his family—and be able to buy batteries for his radio. America and its allies have grandiose expectations, but by placing so much of the burden on an under-trained, inadequately equipped police force, they seem to be setting themselves up for failure.

Evidently the Obama Administration recognizes the current approach is insufficient as the Washington Post reported last week that the U.S. military and NATO are launching a major overhaul of the way they recruit, train and equip Afghanistan’s security forces, seeking to reverse a trend in which the alliance for years did not invest adequately in Afghan troops and police while the Taliban gained strength. Evidently, thus far, this is one area where the lessons of Iraq in terms of properly resourcing your trainers have not been learned.

Will the Obama Administration share the assessment of the Afghanistan war that Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, recently submitted to the Pentagon? And will Congress hold hearings on it before voting on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan?

What should we think about a war where in 2002 there were roughly 5,000 U.S. soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and the Taliban controlled just a small corner of the country’s southeast and now we have Taliban fighting in the peaceful Kunduz and Baghlan (provinces) with NATO’s 100,000 troops? One might also note that since 2007, the number of IEDs in Afghanistan has jumped more than 300 percent. The number of troops killed is up more than 400 percent; the number of wounded up more than 700 percent.

Thus far I have generally been supportive of the Obama administration and give it credit for trying to do the right thing against incredible odds. But it doesn’t get a free pass just because it isn’t the Bush administration.

It’s possible that the U.S. can still do something useful in Afghanistan. But before we send more troops let’s have these and other important questions answered.

When stress becomes fatal

David Isenberg — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 09:08:46 +0000

Mental health may not be the first thing you think of when pundits and bloviators blather on about high foreign policy and international security issues, but it’s there.

If policymakers think they have it tough with their late nights at the White House and Congress try being at the point of spear. If all soldiers and marines had to worry about were lack of sleep and newspaper columnists or think tank experts voicing criticisms they would be rolling on the floor laughing.

You probably know where I’m going with this but let me get specific. After six years of being ground down in Iraq U.S. forces in Afghanistan, currently over sixty thousand of them, are in the thick of it, getting wounded and killed far too freely.

Thus far, 2009 is turning out to be the most tragic for Americans in the Afghan War, with 176 dead, far more than the 155 casualties in all of 2008. A very high number indeed, considering the United States has suffered a total of 806 military deaths since the 2001 invasion.

The only other coalition members with triple-digit casualties since the war began are the United Kingdom, which has 207 deaths, and Canada, which has 127. The impact in those countries is even higher since, as they have far less forces there their casualties are proportionally far higher.

Yet the psychic casualties are also staggering.

As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported this past Saturday the Army, with 128 suicides last year, already has 79 so far this year. The Navy had 41 last year and 28 this year. The Marines have 34, seven shy of last year, and the Air Force has recorded half its 40 suicides of 2008.

And 2008 itself was a record year for military suicides. That year 140 soldiers on active duty took their own lives, continuing a trend in which the number of suicides has increased more than 60 percent since 2003, surpassing the rate for the general U.S. population.

The government says around 5,000 veterans a year commit suicide. To counter that, a VA suicide hot line launched in 2007, (800) 273-TALK, fielded close to 100,000 calls in just its first eight months.

An article in early August by Dahr Jahmail noted that on July 26, the Colorado Springs Gazette ran a story headlined “Casualties of War, Part I: The hell of war comes home.” The article highlighted what is happening to soldiers upon their return from the occupation of Iraq. It begins:

Before the murders started, Anthony Marquez’s mom dialed his sergeant at Fort Carson to warn that her son was poised to kill.
It was February 2006, and the 21-year-old soldier had not been the same since being wounded and coming home from Iraq eight months before. He had violent outbursts and thrashing nightmares. He was devouring pain pills and drinking too much. He always packed a gun.
“It was a dangerous combination. I told them he was a walking time bomb,” said his mother, Teresa Hernandez.
His sergeant told her there was nothing he could do. Then, she said, he started taunting her son, saying things like, “Your mommy called. She says you are going crazy.”
Eight months later, the time bomb exploded when her son used a stun gun to repeatedly shock a small-time drug dealer in Widefield over an ounce of marijuana, then shot him through the heart.
Marquez was the first infantry soldier in his brigade to murder someone after returning from Iraq. But he wasn’t the last.
Marquez, like many others in his brigade, returned home scarred from war, suffering the ravages of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He, like his fellow soldiers, began to murder civilians and each other, drive around and shoot at people, beat their former girlfriends to death, rape, kidnap, brawl, deal drugs, stab people, commit suicide, and self-medicate via alcohol and drugs.
From 2007 to 2008, the murder rate for his brigade, the 4th Infantry Division’s 4th Brigade Combat Team, was 114 times that of Colorado Springs.
Soldiers are returning from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan destroyed mentally, spiritually, and psychologically, to a general population that is, mostly, willfully ignorant of the occupations and the soldiers participating in them. Troops face a Department of Veterans Affairs that is either unwilling or unable to help them with their physical and psychological wounds, and they are left to fend for themselves. It is a perfect storm of denial, neglect, violence, rage, suffering, and death.

Back in May regular duties were suspended for three days at Fort Campbell, Kentucky which was leading the Army in suicides this year, so commanders can identify and help soldiers who are struggling with the stress of war and most at risk for killing themselves.

What is the military doing? When presenting suicide data in early July for the month of June it noted it was

“completing the second phase of a three-phased service-wide suicide stand-down and chain teach program, July 15, 2009. Phases one and two included an interactive training program, that features a video, and a small unit leader training effort which began on February 15, 2009. The third phase of the Army program will include sustained annual suicide prevention training for all soldiers, emphasizing common causes of suicidal behavior and the critical role Army leaders, friends, co-workers and families play in maintaining behavioral health.

The Army’s Suicide Prevention Task Force will continue implementation of the Army Campaign Plan for Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention to further enhance suicide prevention and behavioral health programs that directly affect our Army community and save soldiers’ lives.”

Even allowing for the traditional slowness of a military bureaucracy it seems almost criminally negligent. Somehow having troops watch videos like “Shoulder to Shoulder, No Soldier Stands Alone.” or giving them a laminated “Ask, Care and Escort” card that tells soldiers to ask questions like, “Are you thinking of killing yourself?” just doesn’t cut it.

And, it is not as if this is all of a sudden. The problem isn’t new. An Army survey of 1,124 Iraq troops in 2005 found that GIs who served more than one tour had higher rates of acute stress — a condition that prevents a soldier from working.

The most recent Mental Health Advisory Team report, released in 2008, found few changes. Third- and fourth-tour troops had “significantly lower morale, more mental-health problems and more stress-related work problems.”

Suicide rates, it continued, “remain elevated in both theaters and are above normal Army rates.”

And for all the whoop de doo the rightwing likes to make about the Bush administration’s surge to Iraq 2007 saw a sharp jump in suicides as President Bush sent 28,000 more troops to Iraq to break an insurgency that had mushroomed into civil war. By the end of that year, 295 GIs had killed themselves.

To be fair it is not clear there are any good solutions. The military has been aware of PTSD since the Vietnam War. Yet too many veterans still feel they have no choice but to suck it up. The first thing they need to know is that that PTSD is a natural reaction to a screwed-up situation.

What else? Oh yes, note to the Obama administration; continuing the Bush policy of fighting wars which the country is not really engaged in fighting and for which it doesn’t want to sacrifice is a really bad idea.