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I'm a vet, so maybe you'll listen to me. I served in 2011-2012 over the course of what amounts to two deployments with a Marine Corps unit in Helmand and Nimroz

by kodah 5y ago

I'm a vet, so maybe you'll listen to me. I served in 2011-2012 over the course of what amounts to two deployments with a Marine Corps unit in Helmand and Nimroz provinces. > The US military/political leadership is entirely motivated by optics and self-interest. Virtually every report had to have a positive outlook; publicly recognizing the reality on the ground was forbidden, including using words like "insurgency". I would say this half-thought out. While it is true to some degree, the military is largely beholden to the DOD, State Department, various intelligence agencies and the President. Senior Leaders self interest is staying employed and that is done by appeasing their bosses. If you're going to blame military leaders it's always a good idea to ask, "Where'd they get their orders from?" That may sound like a trope, but it's not. When I went to Afghanistan I cannot tell you how many times we ran into bad intel on the ground. This makes operations run inefficiently, it causes accidents, it affects morale, etc... This literally because the military had a very difficult time, even then, understanding multi-celled non-central organizations like terrorist cells who were smart enough to insert bad intel where it needed to be. I heard the President at the time telling the American citizens that we were training troops in Afghanistan, all the while I kept seeing report after report saying that troops are being shot in the back on patrol. Sure, we're training them but they're smoking hash on post because four years of ANA or AP pay is equivalent to a dowery. Most of those people didn't want to be there to save their country, they were there to have a better life. Very different motivations and they certainly play a distinct difference in how you'll serve. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/11/six-us-soldiers-killed-afghan https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/11/six-us-soldier... We had an entirely ineffective rules of engagement that allowed the Taliban to run amuck as long as they didn't shoot at us. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/5/increase-in-battlefield-deaths-linked-to-new-rules/ https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/dec/5/increase-in-... You can bet that some of the best generals of the time operated over at CENTCOM and were fired for being very real with the President [https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Obama-fire-General-Mattis https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Obama-fire-General-Mattis]. Edit: I don't have any concrete thoughts on who to blame, be it generals, Presidents, or government officials. Maybe there is no blame. There's also room in my mind that the Taliban and other terrorist organizations are just formidable, well-equipped, and well-educated foes who use ideology as a viral weapon in areas that lack the defensive resources of opportunity and education to combat them. In purpose they are no different from cartels -- their main export is heroin (https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/inl/rls/rm/72241.htm https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/inl/rls/rm/72241.htm). It's not only how they fund themselves, but it's how they get rich and garner more power to enable their ideology.

int_19h 5y ago
The amusing thing about Taliban and heroin production and export is that they used to be against it (on religious grounds), and suppressed it very brutally and efficiently. That is, until we invaded. Then they needed the money, and suddenly it was okay. It will be interesting to see what happens now. Apparently the official stance is that they're going to suppress it again, but we'll see how that translates to real actions.
lmm 5y ago
> When I went to Afghanistan I cannot tell you how many times we ran into bad intel on the ground. This makes operations run inefficiently, it causes accidents, it affects morale, etc... This literally because the military had a very difficult time, even then, understanding multi-celled non-central organizations like terrorist cells who were smart enough to insert bad intel where it needed to be. > I don't have any concrete thoughts on who to blame, be it generals, Presidents, or government officials. Maybe there is no blame. There's also room in my mind that the Taliban and other terrorist organizations are just formidable, well-equipped, and well-educated foes who use ideology as a viral weapon in areas that lack the defensive resources of opportunity and education to combat them. This feels like a cop-out. If the wealthiest nation with the most powerful military in the world wasn't able to achieve the outcome they wanted, something's gone wrong somewhere. I'm happy to entertain a theory like, maybe the DoD put yes-men at the top, but that still begs the question of what went wrong and why that didn't happen in previous wars. Is our state capacity actually much weaker than it was in previous decades? Is the real problem that the public wasn't committed to the war? Maybe - but in that case why weren't we able to realise that earlier? Ultimately this shouldn't have happened the way it did. I'm sure there are multiple causes rather than a neat single reason, but something is rotten in the US.
- JohnBooty 5y ago
  something is rotten in the US. There certainly are multiple things rotten in the US, but a glance at history shows us that this sort of challenge has always been nearly impossible. Specifically, I'm talking about the challenges faced by a wealthy, technologically superior nation-state seeking to subdue a remote, decentralized coalition of irregular military forces whose fighters can blend in with the general populace when needed. The birth of the USA was something somewhat similar, with the colonies' "ragtag" army defeating the British. It's also something the Roman Empire struggled with. They conquered city-states with relative ease, rolling them into their empire with a combination of carrot and stick. Decentralized peoples were often another story. It's also not like there's a shortage of writings about how Afghanistan is essentially unconquerable, thanks to geography and culture. "Graveyard of empires," indeed. https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-is-afghanistan-the-graveyard-of-empires/ https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-is-afghanistan-the-grave...

by kodah 5y ago

int_19h 5y ago

The amusing thing about Taliban and heroin production and export is that they used to be against it (on religious grounds), and suppressed it very brutally and efficiently. That is, until we invaded. Then they needed the money, and suddenly it was okay. It will be interesting to see what happens now. Apparently the official stance is that they're going to suppress it again, but we'll see how that translates to real actions.

lmm 5y ago

> When I went to Afghanistan I cannot tell you how many times we ran into bad intel on the ground. This makes operations run inefficiently, it causes accidents, it affects morale, etc... This literally because the military had a very difficult time, even then, understanding multi-celled non-central organizations like terrorist cells who were smart enough to insert bad intel where it needed to be. > I don't have any concrete thoughts on who to blame, be it generals, Presidents, or government officials. Maybe there is no blame. There's also room in my mind that the Taliban and other terrorist organizations are just formidable, well-equipped, and well-educated foes who use ideology as a viral weapon in areas that lack the defensive resources of opportunity and education to combat them. This feels like a cop-out. If the wealthiest nation with the most powerful military in the world wasn't able to achieve the outcome they wanted, something's gone wrong somewhere. I'm happy to entertain a theory like, maybe the DoD put yes-men at the top, but that still begs the question of what went wrong and why that didn't happen in previous wars. Is our state capacity actually much weaker than it was in previous decades? Is the real problem that the public wasn't committed to the war? Maybe - but in that case why weren't we able to realise that earlier? Ultimately this shouldn't have happened the way it did. I'm sure there are multiple causes rather than a neat single reason, but something is rotten in the US.

JohnBooty 5y ago
something is rotten in the US. There certainly are multiple things rotten in the US, but a glance at history shows us that this sort of challenge has always been nearly impossible. Specifically, I'm talking about the challenges faced by a wealthy, technologically superior nation-state seeking to subdue a remote, decentralized coalition of irregular military forces whose fighters can blend in with the general populace when needed. The birth of the USA was something somewhat similar, with the colonies' "ragtag" army defeating the British. It's also something the Roman Empire struggled with. They conquered city-states with relative ease, rolling them into their empire with a combination of carrot and stick. Decentralized peoples were often another story. It's also not like there's a shortage of writings about how Afghanistan is essentially unconquerable, thanks to geography and culture. "Graveyard of empires," indeed. https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-is-afghanistan-the-graveyard-of-empires/ https://thediplomat.com/2017/06/why-is-afghanistan-the-grave...