[Homeland Security Today] America for the past few years has tried in vain to extricate itself from Afghanistan. The fact is, however, try as we may, we seem to be pulled deeper into the situation. Our work with the Mujahedeen and Northern Alliance forces in defeating and driving Al Qaeda and Taliban forces out of the country within months of our entry into Operation Enduring Freedom seems a distant memory now.
Today, Afghanistan is sinking back into a quagmire of chaos; an atmosphere which encourages insurgent forces such as ISIS and a resurgent Taliban, while local rule by the strong trumps national order and security in most of the country. Graft and corruption, largely unheard of before 9/11, today is the norm. ’Rule by warlord’ has to a great extent, remained triumphant over the square democracy, we have tried to force into a round hole. Last month, one of Afghanistan’s vice presidents, former Northern Alliance commander Rashid Dostum, kidnapped and held hostage one of his political opponents. The opposition candidate was kidnapped and held prisoner in one of his palaces in the northern city of Sheberghan. Something went wrong with our utopian view of what Afghanistan could be, and it is vitally important that we understand what that was.
With a new administration with a seemingly new philosophy vis-à-vis America’s role in world security and international relations, we have a chance to reconsider the manner in which we pursue future conflicts. It would be folly to assume there will be fewer rather than more world conflicts that directly and indirectly affect America. It would be further folly to assume America can stand on the sidelines in all such conflicts and hope to avoid negative repercussions of such a policy. In light of this, we must reevaluate the mistakes we’ve made in the past, and Afghanistan offers a perfect lab for study.
About the author: Dr. Godfrey Garner holds a PhD in counseling psychology from Mississippi State University and is currently pursuing a second PhD at the University of Southern Mississippi. Following two tours in Viet Nam and a lengthy break in military service, Dr. Garner rejoined and eventually retired from 20th Special Forces group in 2006. He completed two military and six civilian government-related tours in Afghanistan. His work in Afghanistan most recently has been as a counter-corruption analyst. He is published in Homeland Security Today and Foreign Policy Journal on issues relating to Afghanistan as well as other journals relating to higher education. He is the author of the novel Danny Kane and the Hunt for Mullah Omar.
#2
While we're on the topic of failure, anyone want to venture a guess as to who maintained proponency for the following (which by the way, drove the effort for many years, and may still be driving the effort):
The Joint Prioritized Effects List or JPEL is a list of individuals who coalition forces in Afghanistan try to capture or kill. The Task Force 373 is working through the list. According to the Afghan War Diary German troops listed Shirin Agha with the number 3145 and on 11 October 2010 German troops killed Agha. Coalition forces are authorized to kill or capture individuals named on the list.[1][2][3]
According to a document from the 2010 Afghan War Diary the list has 2,058 names. That list provided the intelligence basis for a pace of some 90 night-raids per month in late 2009.[1]
PBS Frontline reported that the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) was executing targets on the Joint Prioritized Effects List. John Nagl, a former counterinsurgency adviser to General David Petraeus, described JSOC’s kill/capture campaign to Frontline as “an almost industrial-scale counterterrorism killing machine.”[4]
Individuals on the list are assigned priority levels on a scale of one to four, with one being the most important.[5] Since October 2008 the NATO defense ministers decided that drug networks would now be "legitimate targets" for ISAF troops. The United Nations estimated that the Taliban was earning $300 million a year through the drug trade, and according to a leaked NSA document "the insurgents could not be defeated without disrupting the drug trade."[5] In the opinion of American military commanders such as Bantz John Craddock, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander for Europe at the time, there was no need to prove that drug money was actually being funneled to the Taliban to declare Afghan couriers, farmers and dealers as legitimate targets of NATO strikes.[5] In early 2009 Craddock issued an order to expand the JPEL list to include drug producers, but such targets at least had to be investigated as individual cases after a complain by the German NATO General Egon Ramms that the order is "illegal" and a violation of international law.[5]
#6
We 'lost' in Afghanistan and Iraq because we bet that Islam was compatible with Democracy. It was overly-optimistic but now that the Islamic people had the chance I have no guilt about walking away and letting them slaughter each other.
Help the Kurds, get the translators and others that helped the US Military out of the region, and let the place burn.
#7
Graft and corruption, largely unheard of before 9/11, today is the norm.
Largely unheard of? Cultures do not change that dramatically, though a) when we were not there we were not hearing of it, and b) the amounts available for the activity were no doubt somewhat lower before we arrived -- though as I recall the Taliban were also involved in the lucrative opium trade after initially abjuring it.
#9
Largely unheard of? Cultures do not change that dramatically, though a) when we were not there we were not hearing of it, and b) the amounts available for the activity were no doubt somewhat lower before we arrived -- though as I recall the Taliban were also involved in the lucrative opium trade after initially abjuring it.
The use of the word "unheard" is deliberate and meant to mislead.
#10
That's the most unheard of thing I ever heard of.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/26/2016 19:28 Comments ||
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#11
US hasn't had a decisive win since WWII. We are the NY Jets of super powers.
Posted by: Regular joe ||
12/26/2016 20:53 Comments ||
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#12
Back after reading the article: the author's position is that the Special Forces units completed their goal in 2002, and should have then left the Afghans to put their country back together again. It was when the political goal of introducing democracy was added to the mission, and all sorts of other goals for imposing improving the lives of the locals in various comtradictory but expensive ways that failure was assured.
[Zero Hedge] Just over six years ago, in December of 2010, we wrote "Charting America's Transformation To A Part-Time Worker Society", in which we predicted - and showed - that in light of the underlying changes resulting from the second great depression, whose full impacts remain masked by trillions in monetary stimulus and soon, perhaps fiscal, America is shifting from a traditional work force, one where the majority of new employment is retained on a full-time basis, to a "gig" economy, where workers are severely disenfranchised, and enjoy far less employment leverage, job stability and perks than their pre-crash peers. A man who has never held a job is credited with creating jobs. How novel.
It also explains why despite the 4.5% unemployment rate, which the Fed has erroneously assumed is indicative of job market at "capacity", wage growth not only refuses to materialize, but as we showed yesterday, the growth in real disposable personal income was the lowest since 2014.
#3
The 30 hour or less jobs and its companion, the obamacare insurance con game, are this idiots legacy. Once the obamacare insurance increases hit next month the disposabe income will dry up and and interest rates creep up...the economy will begin to tank again...right as obama leaves office...Kinda like he planned it.
#4
also, the number of people with multiple jobs (or gigs as zerohedge calls them) has hit the highest amount recorded this century
as Bill Clinton pointed out (before he was shut down), there are substantial numbers of people working two 29 hour/wk jobs (or one 29hr/wk, and one 20hr/wk, etc) who don't get employer provided health care insurance and earn too much to get subsidized govt marketplace individual health care insurance
even a lot of leftist have figured out that this is a problem
Posted by: lord garth ||
12/26/2016 10:53 Comments ||
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#5
Also, the majority of full-time jobs added were in the public sector.
Also, the rate of new small business startups is the lowest since the country was founded.
Also,.....aw jeez, I no longer have the energy.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
12/26/2016 15:42 Comments ||
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#6
Also, the rate of new small business startups is the lowest since the country was founded.
I grab the monthly New Corporations books at the Mass. State House Bookstore. They generally run about 100 pages every month. It'll be interesting to see what the November and December books look like pagewise.
#8
It used to be once a month, now it's every two or three months. I always pair it with a client visit, so it's not much more than 10 - 15 extra minutes and a walk by the bums at Park Street.
[Hurriyet Daily News] The dead bodies of 16 Turkish soldiers were buried in 14 different provinces across The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , all att about the same time on Dec. 23.
Those soldiers were killed a day before in the Turkish army campaign to wrest control of the Syrian town of al-Bab from the Islamic State
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
12/26/2016 00:00 ||
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#1
Muslims killing each other. The only thing that, IMO, could be better is "Muslims killing each other efficiently".
#2
In play appears to be two processes or celestial experiments running parallel. For the sake of brevity, let us simply refer to them as 'good' and 'evil.' Disturbing the natural order of either may result in disastrous consequences. Perhaps we should let the Muslim process play out without interruption.
#3
The Kurds will soon be caught between a rock and a hard place. Trump will decide how messy ir gets.
If Turkey is to stay with the west, it's dictator has to go.
It’s not like the US president thinks this will change anything.
That was the message President Barack Obama’s aides offered after the US, at his order, abstained from a landmark UN Security Council vote censuring Israel over its settlement enterprise.
White House officials knew this would only infuriate and entrench the Israeli government.
They knew they were too short on time in power to turn this bold move into an actionable point of leverage.
But years of private and public efforts had convinced them of two certainties: that they had tried everything to stop Israel from continuing settlement construction ‐ which they are convinced erodes the possibility of a two-state solution ‐ and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would stop at nothing to continue building.
Obama’s abstention was born of pure frustration among his top staff over the futility of their efforts. It was an acknowledgment of their failure, as they characterized the move as their least preferable option and one riddled with adverse consequences. To quote John Derbishire from 2008 "Another African Socialist"
#1
Yielding to frustration is childish. If it was least preferable and riddled with adverse consequences, why did they pursue it. The adverse consequences will include a fundamental change in the relation ship of the United States to the United Nations.
If that's the fundamental change he meant maybe he's not such a bad guy.
#3
Why should something like the collapse of the Soviet Empire (or any other major/minor socialist entity) ever change the attitude of these twits? At least the Chinese woke up.
The second line of the Christmas carol slips past us. We hear “Good King Wenceslas looked out…” But what about the next bit, “…on the Feast of Stephen?” What’s that about?
December 26th is St. Stephen’s Day—the Feast of Stephen—long an important celebration in the Christian calendar and now largely ignored. It’s time to bring it back.
Stephen was the first Christian martyr, the protomartyr, stoned to death in the years of persecution that followed the death of Jesus. In the Acts of the Apostles, Chapters Six to Eight, we learn that Stephen was “a man full of faith,” appointed to oversee the care of neglected widows. Stephen took on the established authorities, corrupt in deed and belief, and they could not refute his arguments.
So, in timeless human fashion, the powers-that-were bribed witnesses against him. At the climax of his trial, knowing he was doomed, Stephen declared, “I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”
Out came the rocks.
What has this to do with us, as the Year of Our Lord 2017 approaches? To believing Christians, the answer might be “Everything.”
The 2,000-year-old Middle-Eastern Christian civilization that began in the days of St. Stephen lies in ruins, persecuted as never before. As the Obama administration averted its self-righteous gaze, a religious genocide already underway accelerated across the region. Stubborn and dogmatic, the administration refused to acknowledge the problem of Christian refugees—those who’d survived the kidnappings, tortures, rapes, massacres and broad religious cleansing—even to the extent of labeling those who wished to help Christians as bigots.
In Obama’s global village, there’s no room at the inn for Christian refugees. There’s not even a stable.
We’ve watched as a great religious civilization nears extermination. For millennia, through good and horrid times, the three great monotheist religions of the Middle East rubbed along together (with varying levels of friction). Then, in the lifetime of many of this column’s readers, the Jews were driven out. Next came the turn of the Christians, as well as a number of minority faiths. Thanks to extremist Islam.
In the Middle Ages, the majority of Christians lived in the east. The doctrines of the faith were refined in Asia Minor, Palestine and North Africa. The greatest monuments of Christianity’s first thousand years all stood—a few still stand—in lands where Christians long have been persecuted and are now massacred.
Now the Christians are gone, their churches, monasteries and homes in ruins.
This is a new age of martyrs. It’s a time when those who believe in the transcendent generosity of Christ are driven from their homes to suffer exile. It’s an age of blood spilled at a ravaged cross.
Even Bethlehem, within living memory a majority-Christian city, has driven out the followers of Jesus until perhaps a dwindling eighth of the population is Christian.
Where are the campus demonstrations against the torture, rape and murder, the dispossession and massacre of Christians? Where is the outrage in the media? Where are the modern Pharisees we call “public intellectuals.” Where are the consciences in our can’t-be-bothered government?
Those Christians who survive the new barbarians become refugees with nowhere to go. Assigned to “all-faith” asylum homes in Europe, they’re tormented, beaten and threatened by violent migrants. Nor can they go elsewhere in the Middle East.
Yet, we in the United States bar the door against them—in the name of religious tolerance, of all things. One day, we will be as ashamed of our denial of Christian refugees as deeply as we are shamed by our rejection of Jewish refugees from the Nazis.
In this new age of martyrdom, a time when forces such as the Islamic State inflict torments on Christian captives to rival the tortures endured by the early saints, it’s time to revive St. Stephen’s Day to honor the countless martyrs our leaders ignore.
This is not meant as a call for religious division. But in this age of shouting cults and fanaticism, a quiet consideration of Christian ordeals deserves at least one day of our pampered lives.
Wenceslas, too, became a saint—more or less by popular demand. He spread the faith among his pagan subjects, only to be murdered by his brother. In the Victorian-era carol, he’s a king (the historical figure was a duke) who spies a poor man gathering twigs for a fire on the Feast of Stephen--a peasant who will have no feast that day. And the king sets off in the snow on a personal relief mission, followed by one page, the two of them bearing food and wine and pine logs. That particular event may not have occurred, but the symbolism of the gesture should stir us.
For that matter, mark the words of the other old carols, too.
And when you serve up your holiday leftovers on Monday, declare it the Feast of Stephen. Remember those who are martyred as you eat, the tens of thousands of Stephens whom we ignore.
Posted by: Steve White ||
12/26/2016 09:16 ||
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#1
Sorry. If bug eyed Ralph is my only friend, I feel well and truly screwed...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/26/2016 9:54 Comments ||
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h/t Instapundit
I wish I could tell you that, having dodged the naggy bullet that was Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit, we can now spend the next four years being left alone. But that’s not in the cards. Liberals won’t ‐ because they can’t ‐ pause to reflect on how they should stop being such insufferable jerks and live with us normals in peace and mutual respect. Instead, they are doubling down on their gambit for unrestrained power over every aspect of our lives, fueled by a hatred for Donald Trump that is, in reality, a hatred for us.
Remember, they really do hate us. Just ask them.
Just watch what they do. They will always side against us ‐ even when a professional scammer stages a fake "hate crime" on an airplane. They will side with the hoaxer even though every single "Trump-inspired hate crime" ‐ and almost all others ‐ turns out to be a hoax. Every. Single. One.
h/t Instapundit
We live in a world of unintended consequences and Barack Obama, in his overwhelming zeal to exact last-minute personal vengeance on Bibi Netanyahu in particular and Israel in general with Friday's Security Council vote, opened the door to the defunding and serious diminution of the United Nations itself.
Donald Trump -- who is seeking to spend a ton of taxpayer money on rebuilding our military and infrastructure -- is undoubtedly looking for places to save. Nowhere would be better to start than that moribund center of international corruption and megaphone for tin-pot dictators, the United Nations.
What started out after World War II as the idealistic coming together of nations to end war ended up being one of the giant ripoffs of all time.
...Meanwhile, this "peaceful" organization that has had no effect whatsoever on ending war spends most of its working hours bashing the state of Israel. In 2015 alone the UN General Assembly adopted 20 resolutions singling out Israel for criticism -- and only 3 resolutions on the rest of the world combined.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Zero Hedge] Just over six years ago, in December of 2010, we wrote "Charting America's Transformation To A Part-Time Worker Society", in which we predicted - and showed - that in light of the underlying changes resulting from the second great depression, whose full impacts remain masked by trillions in monetary stimulus and soon, perhaps fiscal, America is shifting from a traditional work force, one where the majority of new employment is retained on a full-time basis, to a "gig" economy, where workers are severely disenfranchised, and enjoy far less employment leverage, job stability and perks than their pre-crash peers. 
We are living in a new age of Christian martyrs
