For some time now, I've been studying the war in Afghanistan, most intently during the months leading up to President Obama's November win, and since that time.  I haven't written about Afghanistan yet, but I've been thinking about it a great deal, most especially because members of my family will most likely be called upon to fight there. 

(Two have already been, once each.  One is now retired Army Special Forces and the other is active-duty SF.  Another nephew is also active-duty army who did a long dangerous hitch in Iraq and will most likely wind up doing at least one in Afghanistan.  My son and another nephew are still in their Ready Reserve status and could be called up at any time and deployed there.) 

Since fresh new troops have been sent in recent weeks, culminating in a major push in the Helmand River Valley by the Marines that began yesterday, I thought it was a good time to share my perspective, especially since, as a Marine mom whose son did two combat deployments to Iraq and whose nephews did five more, I opposed that war, even back in the days when it was a mere glimmer in the mad eyes of Bush and his oilman armchair warrior cronies.

There are many good peace activists who are absolutely opposed to any troop buildup in Afghanistan for any reason whatsoever, and who believe, categorically, that we should pull everybody out RIGHT NOW, as we appear to be doing in Iraq.  (Or will have done, by 2012.)

They believe the war is unwinnable and that sending more troops signifies that this is "another Vietnam," as I've seen some call it, or "another Russian-type situation" as have others.

I disagree.

In order to explain why, I'm going to provide as many links as I can that will divide up this piece into several sections: I. Bush's Afghanistan  II.  Obama's Promises  III.  The New Generals' New Strategy and IV.  Obama's Afghanistan.

(Note:  It will probably be the length of a magazine article by the time I'm done, so if you're in a rush right now, you might bookmark this or otherwise return to it when you have a little time and want to read it without skimming through in a hurry.)

 

I.  Bush's Afghanistan

Everybody knows that Afghanistan was Bush's Forgotten War before they'd even caught Bin Laden.  (Oh yeah.  They still haven't caught him.)  Donald Rumsfeld was famous for whining that "there aren't any good targets" to bomb in Afghanistan, for one thing, and for another, the real war they always wanted to fight, since 1991 in fact, was Iraq.

Yes, our forces, helped by the Brits and others, kicked al Qaeda butt and installed their own guy in Kabul, and I don't take anything away from the bravery of our troops who were the point of the spear in those battles.  There is no such thing as an "easy war."  Getting shot at is getting shot at, and there's nothing easy about it unless you're using paint guns, or like maybe Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and All Their Enablers, your feverish imaginations.

But by 2002, Bush and Co. were already training their short attention spans on Iraq, and in no time at all, they had drained troops, materiel, helicopters, planes, artillery--everything the guys needed to root out al Qaeda and the Taliban and secure that population, thus protecting us from their unholy alliance--(you know, the one that brought us 9/11 in the first place), out of Afghanistan and into Iraq, where it stayed for the next seven years.

You can't imagine how tough it was on those who were left to fight this war with NOTHING.  Stuck in miserable little shanty-outposts on isolated mountain peaks; no showers, no phones, virtually no air support and scanty artillery--for months, under fire daily, daily, daily; it's been HELL.

Because so much of our own attention was preoccupied with that illegal, bloody, endless war in Iraq, we failed to take into account just what life was like for the troops who DID deploy to Afghanistan.  (And understand, many of them had already done one or more deployments to Iraq before they even showed up in those remote mountain outposts.)

The New York Times has done an extraordinary job of NOT forgetting Afghanistan, and its intrepid little cadre of war reporters and their cameramen/women have traipsed into some of the worst areas of fighting to chronicle for us what it has been like, sometimes providing riveting slideshows and audio shows of firefights.

Also to be commended is Sebastian Junger (who wrote The Perfect Storm), and who has made numerous journeys deep into the bowels of the beast for Vanity Fair and Outdoor magazines, with his photographer, Tim Hetherington, for which they have won numerous prestigious journalism and news-photography awards.

And I would be remiss if I neglected to mention Richard Engel from NBC news, whose work has been unparallelled.

Here are some of the best articles and photo essays I've found:

*"G.I.'s in Remote Post have Weary Jobs, Drawing Fire," C.J. Chivers

*"Turning Tables, U.S. Troops Ambush Taliban With Swift and Lethal Results," C.J. Chivers

*"Pinned Down, a Sprint to Escape Taliban Zone," C.J. Chivers

"In Bleak Afghan Outpost, Troops Slog On," C.J. Chivers

*"Return to the Valley of Death," Sebastian Junger 

(For several links to Tim Hetherington's stunning photo essays, look here.)

One of the best pieces appeared in New York Times Magazine ("A Change in MIssion" by Kristen Henderson) just a couple weeks ago, but I will link to that in a moment because it deals with how the war is beginning to change with a new commander-in-chief, and the challenges the junior officers in the field (lieutenants and captains) are facing, implementing those changes.

Right now, we're talking about Bush's War.

This war, for the men and women who have been ABANDONED for the past seven years while they slogged on and slogged on, has been impossible to fight.  They haven't had vehicles, or helicopters, or enough troops or artillery, or simple things like a place to eat.  They haven't had decent supplies of ANYTHING, and for the men (combat units are still all-male) stranded on these remote outposts, the firefights with Taliban number in the hundreds. 

One unit I read about has been in place for about six months and have so far dealt with FIVE HUNDRED firefights.

You do the math.

It has been piss-poor, the way these brave men have been treated.  Rotten.  Miserable.  SHAMEFUL.

And the U.S. military is not to be blamed for it, because they've done the best they can with this groaning responsibility thrust upon them by Bush and Co--to fight two wars.  There was once an old sit-com that came out during the Carter years called, "Carter Country," which featured a (very) small-town Southern sheriff's department.  They had this fat, worthless little mayor who was forever getting the little town into some kind of dire straits and then turning to the sheriff or his longsuffering aide and waving his fingers, blithely grinning and saying, "Handle it, handle it!"

This is what the military's boss did to them for eight outrageous years.  Bogged them down in intractible wars, then figuratively grinned and said, "Handle it, handle it!"

(While all the time, it must be remembered, boasting of maybe bombing Iran or North Korea.)

And while fighting the Forgotten War, troops also had to deal with regular guerilla-war problems:

*"In Afghanistan, Terrain Rivals Taliban as Enemy," Candace Rondeaux

*"Afghan Officials Aided in Attack on U.S. Soldiers," Eric Schmidt; (in which nine American troops were killed and 27 were injured, just two weeks before going home following a 15-month deployment)

*"Afghan Firefight Shows Challenge for US Troops," Chris Brummitt, writing for the AP

Every time I would read one of these articles, I would get so angry I would shake from head to foot.  Nobody loved using the troops as a photo-op backdrop or weepy speech-stuffer better than George W. Bush. 

And nobody--EVER--abused our troops worse.

 

II.  Obama's Promises

Understand that, whenever I would read about the godawful situation in Afghanistan, I would read a wish-list of what would be needed to fix the situation, from troops on the ground, from the generals, from aide workers, from diplomats, from Aghans themselves.  And nearly always, they would say, "But that will probably never happen."

Then Obama was elected president.

One of the first things he did was order up a full review of what would be needed from General Petraeus, and he gave the general two months to come up with it.  Petraeus is a highly-educated man who has surrounded himself with military advisors who, like himself, have doctorates or otherwise a scholarly background.  He combines this perspective with on-the-ground savvy when he conducts these studies.

And the plan his task force came up with was just exactly what all those people had been saying would be needed.

The only difference is that THIS time, someone was listening.

And what many of the doubters don't seem to realize is that increasing the numbers of troops in-country is only PART of that strategy.  It's not like Vietnam, when we simply escalated and escalated and escalated our occupying forces, nor is it like the Soviet Union, who endeavored to fight a conventional war when it sent its troops into Afghanistan.

This is different.

Two of the best essays I've found that explain the difference, in proper historial context, with the new strategy are:

*"Graveyard Myths," Peter Bergen

*"A Manhunt or a Vital War?" Robert D. Kaplan

What sets Obama's strategy apart from Bush's is that, first of all, there IS a strategy.

During the worst of the Forgotten-War days, commanders on the ground complained that there was, quite simply, NO STRATEGY for dealing with Afghanistan. 

This comes as no surprise to those of us who watched Iraq implode under the no-strategy Bush Rule there, but in the case of Afghanistan, when it is so desperately important that we not allow al Qaeda to resettle into their comfy little Taliban homes and plot anew, unbothered, to kill Americans--this was just unforgivable, and frustrating beyond belief for the military that was tasked with the no-strategy war.

Obama's careful, considered approach has been dramatically different because there IS a strategy and there IS an exit plan.  No, you can't put a timeframe on it, not yet.  But it will begin to take shape over the course of the next year.

The strategy includes, yes, more troops in the short-term.  This is necessary not just to relieve the beleagured mountain-guys who've been stuck in Nowhereland for years now, but to throw out the Taliban in areas where it's been operating with impunity, areas such as the rich Helmand River Valley area, where poppy-farming supports the opium trade that keeps al Qaeda in operation.

We just did not have enough troops to spread around that enormous country, at least, not in force, and not in a way that they could STAY once they cleared out an area.  The local populations do not like the Taliban, by and large, but they fear them greatly, and with good reason.  They need protection, and we have not been able to provide it for them.

But beyond that, Obama's plan calls on a gigantic influx of civilians to help build this new Afghanistan--not just billions to bury in no-bid contract building projects, but actual civil servants to help teach Afghans how to take care of themselves.

For two quick, one-page assessments of this strategy, here are editorials from the New York Times and the Washington Post on this subject that appeared in March--before Pakistan had even begun clamping down on ITS side of the border, affectively creating a vise to trap terrorists:

*"The Price of Realism," Washington Post

*"The Remembered War," New York Times

I'm going to get into more detail about the new strategy in part IV, but for now, I want to draw attention to the new guys who are going to be called upon to implement the new strategy:

 

III.  The New Generals' New Strategy

There was, in the beginning, some worry about Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the new U.S. Commander in Afghanistan, who comes from a top-secret Special Forces background and whose responsibilities have been, to date, to track down terrorists and kill them.  So there was some concern that he wouldn't "get" Obama's so-called "soft power" approach.

And yes, there are, historically, some generals like, say, Patton, who are bad-ass bastards all the way through, my-way-or-the-highway types to whom the troops are pretty much chess pieces to be shoved around on a board, damn the casualties.

Then there are the Dwight D. Eisenhowers, the generals who learn as they go and adjust their approaches accordingly, to whom each and every one of those troops is a flesh-and-blood human being and somebody's son or daughter.

Which type of general do you think a man like Barack Obama would favor?

This reminds me of a funny story.  (Yes, really.)  It's been my observation that some people are in awe of generals, maybe a little bit afraid of them.  They seem to think that becoming a general is some sort of superhuman accomplishment, reserved only for the choicest among us.

Now, most of you know I've got a brother-in-law who retired at the rank of Brigadier General of the U.S. Army Special Forces.  Both his sons are active-duty army and both are captains now with their own company commands.

His sister, my sister-in-law, Kay, is the mother of a Marine who served three combat deployments to Iraq as an enlisted man.  Even though he is no longer active-duty, she still volunteers every Sunday afternoon of her life with the USO out at DFW airport.  One of the things they do is see off deploying troops, providing Care packages for them with things like phone cards and edible goodies.

One time, the deploying troops were accompanied by a general who was also deploying.

Kay asked the other volunteers if anybody had given the general a Care package.

They looked at her as if she'd suddenly sprouted horns and said, "Well, NO.  He's...he's a GENERAL."

Cocking her head, she said, "So what?  He's just somebody's dumb old big brother."

With that, she marched up to the general and asked if he'd like a Care package and if there was anything she could do for him.

Delighted with the package, he thanked her and said, "Ma'am, as long as I'm here, my troops will think I'm trying to keep an eye on them.  They've got enough on their minds as it is, and I don't want them to be intimidated by my presence.  If you had just someplace I could wait in private, I'd appreciate it."

She found him an empty office, and he gratefully waited for the plane to arrive.

It's easy, when surrounded by Brass, to get "intimidated" and forget that, really, these guys are just somebody's dumb old big brothers.

Bush was always a little bit in awe of his generals.

And while Obama has the deep respect that their rank and experience affords them, he does not lose sight of what he wants to accomplish and how he wants things to change in Afghanistan.  There is no way he'd hand it over to somebody like, say, Patton, when what he really needs is an Eisenhower.  (Yeah, that's a very broad metaphor.  Please don't provide a lengthy history lesson on the two generals in the comment section, 'kay?  Let's stick to this war for now.)

A couple of quotes given by Gen. McChrystal to the Wall Street Journal are instructive in that vein, I think, in how he has changed his view of warfare to suit the new circumstance:

 

After watching the U.S. try and fail for years to put down insurgencies in both countries, Gen. McChrystal said he believes that to win in Afghanistan, "You're going to have to convince people, not kill them.

"Since 9/11, I have watched as America tried to first put out this fire with a hammer, and it doesn't work," he said last week at his home at Fort McNair in Washington. "Decapitation strategies don't work."

 

Soundbite-quotes make good copy, but McChrystal is backing up his words with his actions, according to this piece in the New York Times:

 

The new American commander in Afghanistan has been given carte blanche to handpick a dream team of subordinates, including many Special Operations veterans, as he moves to carry out an ambitious new strategy that envisions stepped-up attacks on Taliban fighters and narcotics networks.

The extraordinary leeway granted the commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, underscores a view within the administration that the war in Afghanistan has for too long been given low priority and needs to be the focus of a sustained, high-level effort.

General McChrystal is assembling a corps of 400 officers and soldiers who will rotate between the United States and Afghanistan for a minimum of three years. That kind of commitment to one theater of combat is unknown in the military today outside Special Operations, but reflects an approach being imported by General McChrystal, who spent five years in charge of secret commando teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

The new general's first task will be to report back, in 60 days from now, to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, an assessment of his mission and plans for implementing President Obama's new strategy.

So...Just what IS that strategy:

 

IV.  Obama's Afghanistan

The first thing you have to understand about Obama's Afghanistan is that it is not just the MILITARY'S Afghanistan--this is a civilian undertaking, every bit as much.

And they are heading over to the country right along with the military.  According to the Washington Post:

 

A civilian "surge" of hundreds of additional U.S. officials in Afghanistan would accompany the already approved increase in U.S. troop levels there under a new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy being completed at the White House, according to administration officials...

Officials said the proposed strategy includes a more narrowly focused concentration on security, governance and local development in Afghanistan, with continued emphasis on rule-of-law issues and combating the narcotics trade. U.S. and British troops in the southern part of the country will attempt to oust entrenched Taliban forces, with an influx of reinforcements enabling them to retain control -- and help protect enhanced civilian operations -- until greatly expanded and sufficiently trained Afghan army and police forces are able to take their place.

 

It's not just us sending more folks from the State Dept., either:

 

In addition to increasing its own civilian component, the administration seeks better coordination among the many other governments and international and nongovernmental agencies operating in Afghanistan, often with different rules and objectives. The strategy proposals include a strengthening of the United Nations as a clearinghouse and overall coordinator of nonmilitary efforts, including the appointment of veteran U.S. diplomat Peter W. Galbraith as deputy to Norwegian Kai Eide, the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan.

"This is a big deal," said a senior U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity before the appointment is announced. "The Bush administration undermined and ignored the U.N., and we minimized our influence. But imagine, with all the money we pay and American troops on the line, not to have a senior person" at the top level of the U.N. effort. A U.N. official said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will announce Galbraith's appointment in "a matter of days."

 

In another piece, also by Karen De Young of the Post, the State Dept. has already begun to recruit diplomats from among its ranks for the new postings:

 

The State Department will significantly expand its presence in regional capitals in western and northern Afghanistan in coming months, part of the Obama administration's plans for a "surge" in civilians going to the country.

"As part of our expanding efforts in Afghanistan," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a cable sent Saturday to all Foreign Service officers, "the Department intends to create 14 additional FS positions in Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif."

The cable called the jobs "priority" assignments and "new opportunities" for diplomats about to bid on new postings for later this year.

 

Even Bob Woodward, no doubt working on another war book, seems to get the message, in a lengthy piece for the Post this past weekend:

 

National security adviser James L. Jones told U.S. military commanders here last week that the Obama administration wants to hold troop levels here flat for now, and focus instead on carrying out the previously approved strategy of increased economic development, improved governance and participation by the Afghan military and civilians in the conflict.

The message seems designed to cap expectations that more troops might be coming, though the administration has not ruled out additional deployments in the future. Jones was carrying out directions from President Obama, who said recently, "My strong view is that we are not going to succeed simply by piling on more and more troops."

"This will not be won by the military alone," Jones said in an interview during his trip. "We tried that for six years." He also said: "The piece of the strategy that has to work in the next year is economic development. If that is not done right, there are not enough troops in the world to succeed."

 

But what ABOUT the military?  Do THEY get it?  What about the 4,000 Marines that poured into the Helmand River Valley yesterday and today?  Did anyone send THEM the memo?

Apparently, yes.

Rajiv Chandrasekaran writes for the Post:

 

State has promised to have a dozen more diplomats and reconstruction experts working with the Marines, but only by the end of the summer.

To compensate in the interim, the Marines are deploying what officers here say is the largest-ever military civilian-affairs contingent attached to a combat brigade -- about 50 Marines, mostly reservists, with experience in local government, business management and law enforcement. Instead of flooding the area of operations with cash, as some units did in Iraq, the Marine civil affairs commander, Lt. Col. Curtis Lee, said he intends to focus his resources on improving local government.

Once basic governance structures are restored, civilian reconstruction personnel plan to focus on economic development programs, including programs to help Afghans grow legal crops in the area. Senior Obama administration officials say creating jobs and improving the livelihoods of rural Afghans is the key to defeating the Taliban, which has been able to recruit fighters for as little as $5 a day in Helmand.

In meetings with his commanders at forward operating bases over the past three days, Nicholson acknowledged that focusing on governance and population security does not come as naturally to Marines as conducting offensive operations, but he told them it is essential that they focus on "reining in the pit bulls."

"We're not going to measure your success by the number of times your ammunition is resupplied. . . . Our success in this environment will be very much predicated on restraint," he told a group of officers from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines on Sunday. "You're going to drink lots of tea. You're going to eat lots of goat. Get to know the people. That's the reason why we're here."

 

Drinking tea and eating goat may not seem like what Marines signed up for, but you would be surprised.  They're there to protect the people, and if this is the best way to go about it, then so be it.

And for those who worry about the fact that Obama has sent more troops and fear he may send more, you need to realize that he's going about this with great care and thought.  Richard A. Oppel, Jr. wrote this for the Times:

 

The 21,000 additional American troops that Mr. Obama authorized after taking office in January almost precisely matches the original number of additional troops that President George W. Bush sent to Iraq two years ago. It will bring the overall American deployment in Afghanistan to more than 60,000 troops. But Mr. Obama avoided calling it a surge and resisted sending the full reinforcements initially sought by military commanders.

Instead, Mr. Obama chose to re-evaluate troop levels over the next year, officials said. The Obama administration has said that the additional American commitment has three main strategies for denying havens for the Taliban and Al Qaeda: training Afghan security forces, supporting the weak central Afghan government in Kabul and securing the population.

 

Even the manner in which the military is deploying is being adjusted to Obama's strategy.  Consider this from the Post on how the 82nd Airborne is reconfiguring its troops:

 

The extra 4,000 U.S. troops, expected to deploy in early fall, are to fill that gap. In a sign of the new importance the administration is placing on the mission, a brigade of the Army's vaunted 82nd Airborne Division is being broken up into 10-to-14-member advisory teams, a Pentagon official said. Until now, the military has relied heavily on inexperienced National Guardsmen to fill out the teams.

"The change couldn't be more dramatic," said retired Lt. Col. John A. Nagl, president of the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan defense think tank. "The 82nd Airborne Division is the nation's shock force."

"We want to move as aggressively and as quickly as possible to build up the Afghan national army," one administration official said. "It's much cheaper in the long run to train Afghans to fight" than to send U.S. forces "halfway around the world."

 

And finally, what do all these policy changes mean to the men and women on the ground who are charged with implementing them?

I'm not talking about the generals.  I'm talking about the enlisted men and women, the first and second lieutenant platoon leaders, the captain and major company commanders--these are the TRUE tip of the spear, and if THEY don't get it, NOBODY does.

This is what makes Kristen Henderson's article, "A Change in Mission," which appeared in the New York Times Magazine on June 21, so fascinating to me.

Henderson is married to a Navy chaplain.  Navy chaplains do not always spend their time in which they are deployed on-board gigantic ships.  They also deploy with combat Marines and minister to those guys right in the thick of things.  Henderson is, herself, no slouch as a war correspondent--I suspect that the Marines cooperate far more with a female war correspondent if she's married to a Navy chaplain who has, himself, deployed.  They realize that she speaks their language and understands their world better than most.

For this piece, she was front and center on one of the many isolated outposts that our soldiers and Marines have defended so bravely and with so little support for so many years. 

Her writing makes you feel the sweat and the fear.

First Lieutenant Arthur Karell, who she profiles in the piece, is Harvard-educated and was Wall Street-employed before he enlisted in the Marines.  During his deployment, he has seen a great deal of combat under hardscrabble conditions, but it doesn't stop there.  He also spends much of his time sitting in dirt floors with villagers, drinking sweet tea and talking to them about what they need, what they expect, what are their complaints, and how he can help.

One of his biggest frustrations was that, once they pulled out and headed for home, all their hard work in securing the area would be lost--which is why he was elated when, after Obama was elected, his unit got the news that reinforcements would be replacing them, this time with the helicopters as well as civilian support that they had not had during his time in Afghanistan.

He told Henderson that, just seeing what one platoon could accomplish all by itself, he had great hope that with the new strategy, some real change might take place in that country.

Which is one of many reasons that, even though his old Wall Street firm thew him a party when his enlistment ended and offered him his old job back--he chose to re-enlist instead.

This is a man who, only a year before, had ordered his men to fix bayonets on their rifles--because they were expecting the combat to be that close, deadly, and terrifying.

If a young man like that--only 26 years old--can have that kind of hope, that kind of optimism in the fact of President Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan, then I don't hardly see how the rest of us can fail him.

Let's just give this thing a chance to work.  Those guys who've been stranded forgotten on top of remote mountaintop outposts for eight years now deserve at least that much.

If it fails, it fails.

But it is worth at least a chance.

It's all our guys ever asked of us, and it's the least we owe them, and the least we owe the people of Afghanistan.

 

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