Special Ops Commanders Want Large Deployment to Afghanistan
Spencer Ackerman’s reporting on the role being played by Vice Admirals WilliamMcRaven and Robert Harward in the Afghanistan policy debate explains why Joe Biden wound up losing the argument over whether we should try to get by in Afghanistan with a “light footprint” and a narrow focus on counterterrorism. Basically, these are the guys who hold key special forces posts and would be largely responsible commanding counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. And they want to see such efforts embedded within a larger counterinsurgency strategy. Thus you end up with a fairly united front of relevant military players in favor of COIN approach and a substantial additional deployment of forces.
One thing I think this highlights is the limits of conducting this kind of debate more-or-less entirely within the four walls of the military. After all, why wouldn’t the special ops guys want to see as much resources as possible put into Afghanistan? At the end of the day to get a real debate going about the wisdom of going big you need someone in the room who represents a competing claim on the resources at hand. Does it make sense to sustain tens of thousands of soldiers in Afghanistan at a cost of tens of billions of dollars a year in order to protect America from a group with “several hundred to several thousand members” and no heavy weapons? Well, I think that depends on what alternative uses of the resources are available. If the meeting also includes someone who needs to worry about the budget deficit, or about health care, or about child nutrition, or preventing bridges from collapsing then maybe this doesn’t look like such a great deal. But if it’s a meeting of uniformed military officers to talk about what’s the best way to handle the situation in Afghanistan, then even the guys who do counterterrorism still see the benefits of a broader approach.
17 Responses to “Special Ops Commanders Want Large Deployment to Afghanistan”
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November 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am
If the meeting also includes someone who needs to worry about the budget deficit, or about health care, or about child nutrition, or preventing bridges from collapsing then maybe this doesn’t look like such a great deal.
But someone like that is unable to look at the bigger picture, unlike a Vice Admiral sitting on his ass in his Virginia office looking at shiny giant maps.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:56 am
It can’t be repeated enough: all those guys are likely war criminals:
That unit was responsible for numerous murders and war crimes in Iraq. You don’t want to “look back” and those are the guys you get to run your administration in secret, thanks to Bush-era “laws”.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:01 am
all those guys are likely war criminals
Obama too! After all, Obama is ordering the drone strikes on civilians.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Exactly so. I have great respect for Navy admirals, they seem to have their head on straight when it comes to strategy, more so than Army or Air Force generals. However, two quick notes – first, the SEALs did terrible in Afghanistan, it was not their element, and they suffered casualties as a result. Leave it to the Army spec-ops.
Second, and more importantly, some day these generals and admirals will figure out that war is not strictly a military operation and there is in fact other aspects of national power involved. Now admittedly, the past administration’s National Security Council (NSC) and (it appears) this administration’s NSC are doing lousy jobs of defining goals for those other aspects, but that doesn’t excuse the laziness and wastefulness of a military-only emphasis on this topic.
“War is too important to be left to the generals” – Clemenceau was right, and it needs to be repeated loudly and often.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Obama too! After all, Obama is ordering the drone strikes on civilians.
Indeed. In fact, the question of whether Obama will ever try to prosecute Bush officials for torture is answered in this article:
If you recall that Obama refuses to grant the International Committee of the Red Cross access to all of the prisons or prison areas at Bagram, and that McChrystal’s teams were torturing people in Iraqi jails, it is easy to imagine what will happen in Guantanamo II. But this time, no ICRC report to document the atrocities.
(sorry Al, not everyone wants to be a cheerleader for the Dear Leader for 8 years like you were)
November 10th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Obama too! After all, Obama is ordering the drone strikes on civilians.
It’s good when nuts from both ends of the spectrum find common ground.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:30 am
“War is too important to be left to the generals” – Clemenceau was right, and it needs to be repeated loudly and often.
I don’t think this has been acknowledged in this country since Eisenhower was president. Just one more reason Obama is a huge disappointment.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Like everyone else, the generals want bigger budgets. There are intangibles, like wanting more prestige or more glory or more smell of victory, but it’s all part of just wanting bigger budgets.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:39 am
It seems like this would be a fool’s errand, since institutionally and politically it’s impossible to allocate resources away from the military, particularly while they’re fighting. There are people in government who are constantly reminding us about the deficit, but they’re Republicans, and refuse to consider scaling-back the military as a solution. For them, placing any budget priority over the Pentagon is unpardonable … as long as they’re notthe ones doing it, of course.
November 10th, 2009 at 11:46 am
One thing I think this highlights is the limits of conducting this kind of debate more-or-less entirely within the four walls of the military. After all, why wouldn’t the special ops guys want to see as much resources as possible put into Afghanistan
Why, you ask? Both institutionally and individually, the spec ops guys of every service have very little use for Pogs/Legs/REMF’s/etc, so this in many ways runs counter to their instincts and biases. Forming up their very own COCOM years ago was so they could basic operate without paying much attention to the wants or needs – or resources – of Big Army or Big Navy.
FTFA:
“In a move signaling his own importance to McChrystal, Harward will arrive in Afghanistan later this month “
November 10th, 2009 at 11:58 am
By far the most disturbing sentence in Ackerman’s piece was this:
‘Debate about a “purely counterterrorism strategy” advocated by Vice President Joseph Biden was “bounced around at one point, but that has been cast aside,” said a National Security Council staffer who attends the meetings and who asked for anonymity because the debate is still ongoing, “mostly because JSOC has said ‘We’re going to do this anyway.’ And it’s not like they’re going to be in a supporting role.”’ (Emphasis added.)
“We’re going to do this anyway.” I didn’t realize that civilians take order from JSOC – or that JSOC is free to ignore with impunity orders it dislikes and disagrees with. Regardless of which side one takes in the debate over Afghanistan, the very idea that some military officers believe that they – and they alone – not only execute policy, but make it as well, is extremely unsettling. My sense is that this attitude pervades in some quarters of the SpecOps community, since they got pretty much free rein do whatever they wanted under Bush and Rumsfeld, and that things have not changed much under Obama and Gates. Hopefully that NSC staffer was quoted out of context, or is some pissant who’s shooting his mouth off and is not in a decisionmaking position.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Obviously sitting on your ass in your Afghan office looking at giant shiny maps while polishing your medals gives you an even better view of the big picture regarding health care, education, infrastructure investment, the rule of law etc…
November 10th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
our forces are in Afghanistan in order to give us the ability to project military power towards russia, china and iran. it has little to do with protecting the country.
November 10th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
It’s EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING that you keep using the Orwellian term counterinsurgency as if this was some regular process that the US as occupier has nothing to do with. There is NO SUCH THING as Counterinsurgency – “Insurgency” is the result and countermeasure against an occupation! There is no counterinsurgency because what insurgency is itself a counterphenomenon to an occupation. In two years everyone will move on from this laundered term into something else (just like they did from WMDs), but I can not believe you’re just using it as is!
November 10th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
THE [EU/NATO] & THE DYING EMPIRE
It is time for the [EU/NATO] the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to wake up and smell the coffee or tea on the table and the roses. The American Israeli Empire has gone to [Af-Pak] The Afghanistan-Pakistan Theater of the Islamic Crescent War for Resources and Markets to die. It has come time for the [EU/NATO], to weigh the cost of any further involvement in the War for Resources and Markets that only benefit the Empire, and Empire that will no longer exist by [2020] a short decade away, [10] years. Examine the facts;
* The Demographics of the Empire are in decline, towards a Third World Culture based society.
* The Empire has no National Language
* The Empire has no National Religion
* The Empire has no unique American-Israeli Cultural Base to support its continued existence, but in fact a divided cultural base in a declining Empire.
* The Market Base and Economic Center has shifted from a base in [NYC] New York City, and the [NYSE] New York Stock Exchange to Hong Kong].
* The [G-8/G-20] are being replaced the [BRIC] Sphere of Influences, Brazil, The Russian Federation, India, and the Peoples Republic of China, Council of Spheres;
[Which now can be broken into Economic Sphere’s of Influence of]
** Sphere One: Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, and Venezuela.
** Sphere Two: The Common Wealth of Nations, The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and South Africa.
** Sphere Three: The Peoples Republic of China and Indonesia.
** Sphere Four: (EU) European Union, France, Germany, and Italy.
** Sphere Five: The Russian Federation, Armenia, Belarus, the Caucasian, Czechoslovakia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Poland, Tajikistan Turkey and Uzbekistan.
** Sphere Six: Saudi Arabia
** Sphere Seven: United States, Japan, and South Korea.
* The ($Dollar Base Currency) has been replaced by the (Diversified Currency Base) The Spheres of Influence based currency system.
Diversified/Multilateral Currency Regime
Diversified/Multilateral Currency Regime, based upon a broader trade-weighted basket. The Multilateral Currencies would be the GLOBAL NUMERAIRE CURRENCIES [Euro, Pound Sterling, Japanese Yen, and Chinese Yuan], and hard currency Gold, Silver, Oil and Mineral Currency-The Russian Federation, Food Production Currency-Brazil, and Production Currency The Peoples Republic of China/India, assets that are less volatile, against price fluctuations, virtually context-free of the chance of their value disappearing entirely.
[BILATERAL SYSTEM]
At present there is a Bilateral [Two-Side by Side] systems, of Base Currencies operational, the Old Empire Base Currency System of the Empire Dollar, and New [Diversified/Multilateral Currency Regime/See Below] and there can only, in the end be [1] one. Soros stated that the Empire Dollar has been, is, and will continue to be a drag on the entire Global Economy as it declines into a Third World Status, along with the Empires Demography, and cultural base, and that in fact has the [BRIC] is actively engaged in [Cash and Carry/ See Below ] and Cornering of [STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT ECONOMIC AND MILITARY] assets as hedges against the collapse of the Dollar, as the [NYSE] New York Stock Exchange is felt to be [1/3 / 33.3%] One-Third or Thirty-Three and a Third Percent over valued, and should be in the [6K] Six-Thousand Range, and the [S&P 500] Standards and Poor Five Hundred Index over-valued by [40%] Forty-Percent. Those countries that choose to remain with the Empire Base Currency will decline along with that currency, those that choose to uncouple from and shift to the Diversified/Multilateral Currency Regime, will rise with the Currency Regime, as the Empire Dollar is devaluing as the Euro and others of the New System are on the rise.
[BETWIXT AND BETWEEN]
Now, we read an article, [Generals Can't Be Trusted, by Lee Siegel, http://www.TheDailyBeast.Com., now we question as to if Lee had at any time been in the military himself, or understands the position of those on the ground, are now in, they have a [12::01] a twelve to one ratio over the [IFF] Islamic Freedom Fighters and are losing, the [MIC] Military Industrial Complex, wants to increase that ratio to a [20::01] twenty-one ratio, much as General of the Armies Douglas MacArthur, and later in Vietnam William Westmoreland, the head of U.S. Military Operations and then Army Chief of Staff [A MIC Board Member], it is always the same and Lee has got to get that understood, It’s More Money, More Troops, More Time, More Mission Creep, and More Strategies to in the end gain Victory as defined by the [Political] class. Lee just doesn’t get it, your either in or your out but you just can’t be betwixt and between. If Lee is saying we should withdraw then support a total withdrawal, if Lee is for Victory as defined by [Political] dictum than support Victory at any cost, any middle course is a crime against humanity. And the [EU/NATO] has a choice to make send troops to die for a dying Empire or look to the [21st] Century with Empire troops no longer on European soil, all bases around the globe gone, [300] three hundred countries cleared of [700] seven hundred bases of Empire Troops of Occupation. Isn’t it time to think it thru;
** it’s let’s stop killing people
** let’s stop making enemies
** let’s bring the troops home
It’s time to start the [21st] Century, to end [65] Sixty-Five years of Empire Wars of Resources and Markets, with the occupation of [300] three-hundred countries, the Empire is over, its time to place a grave stone over it.
HERCULE TRIATHON SAVINIEN
November 10th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Of course the military always wants more troops. However, that’s hardly the issue here. The issue is whether our occupation is doing more harm than good. Are we inspiring more anti-American terrorism? I say yes. Are we bankrupting our country(which is what bin Laden wants)? I say yes. And why do we need 100,000 troops in Afghanistan when there are less than 100 al Qaeda there, as al Qaeda happily sets up shop in Somalia, Yemen, etc? Are we doomed to occupy these countries too?
November 11th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
[...] She’ll stop attracting attention because, as Spencer writes in that very same post, there’s absolutely no constituency for withdrawal of American forces inside the Obama administration. Instead, the debate among civilians runs from “we should stick with the increase in troop levels that Obama has already executed” to “we should engage in large additional increases in troop levels.” And within the uniformed military it seems that everyone wants large additional increases. [...]