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Afghanistan
SEAL controversy shows the limits of U.S. Special Operations strategy in AFG
2015-12-19
(WAPO) The war in Afghanistan has always been a collection of tiny wars fought from tiny outposts that have their own heroes and villains, pitched battles and murky outcomes. These miniature conflicts are formed by the character of the troops sent to fight in them, Afghanistan's austere terrain and the country's multitude of tribes. Often these wars exist separate from one another, only to be found under the larger umbrella of The War in Afghanistan. Some of these scattered battles have household names, such as the Korengal and Sangin, while others are so small that they are rarely mentioned except by those who have traversed their machine gun-raked fields and explosive-laden valleys.

The village of Kalach was one of those almost-forgotten places, and it bore little significance to the world until Thursday, when the New York Times released an exhaustive two-year-long investigative report on Kalach's terrible little war and the men who waged it in spring 2012.

The Times report details a long spell of boredom and frustration within a dusty military outpost outside of Kalach. That spell ended with a group of Navy SEALs from SEAL team 2 allegedly beating unarmed men -- and facing little consequence for doing so. And while it is unclear what brought some of America's best special operations troops to the verge of killing detainees, it's possible that it was the demands of a broader special operations strategy in Afghanistan that thrust units, such as the SEALs, into roles they had not been designed to carry out.
Key word in the above para...."alleged" but what's the harm. There were no reports of infants being devoured as in 1967.
In 2009, Gen. Stanley McChrystal took command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan and soon implemented a widespread initiative that would task special operations troops to carry out "village stability operations," or VSOs, and to help train Afghan local police. VSOs were sporadic during the early phases of the war (2002 onward) but became the cornerstone of the United States' Afghan strategy from 2009 onward. VSOs were meant to be built around an Army Special Forces team known as an Operational Detachment-Alpha or ODA. The ODAs were to provide some reinforcement to a particular village in order to help that village develop and provide security for itself.

McChrystal's strategy, however, called for so many ODAs that there simply were not enough of them to fulfill the newfound mission requirements. Other special forces units like SEALs began to rotate with ODAs and assist with VSOs and with training Afghan local police. This was the case in Kalach, as the SEAL team arrived to replace an Army Special Forces unit in 2012, according to the Times report.
Posted by:Besoeker

#3  If you're not gonna believe in De Oppresso Liber, or not gonna do it... what's the point of spending the money, or going through the Miseries of the training?
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2015-12-19 16:07  

#2  No mention of how the Obama administration's mis-trust of the military caused the undercutting of McChrystal's strategy. When he asked for more troops he was either denied them outright or sent much less than he asked for. I hate the New York Times. It's a propaganda machine for the in-fallible Obama.
Posted by: Deacon Blues   2015-12-19 12:22  

#1  Exhaustive NYT two-year-long investigation? Bored Special Operators?

A misguided and 'SOF capabilities' clueless Gen. Stanley McChrystal ?

Pardon my reach, tossing bullshi* flag.
Posted by: Besoeker   2015-12-19 11:15  

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