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afghanistan

Oliver North on the Afghanistan Pullout

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FoxNews Insider:

First the good news. The war in Afghanistan is being won. As our FOX News team saw on our most recent trip through the length and breadth of the country, the Taliban and their al Qaeda allies are being defeated at nearly every turn. Though military operations and police actions are being conducted at their highest pace since the war began a decade ago, coalition, Afghan and civilian casualties continue to decline – even in the midst of “fighting season.” According to U.S. and allied military officers with whom we spoke, Taliban fighters are defecting in greater numbers than ever before. Though our political leaders in Washington won’t use the word, “victory” is within reach.

Now the bad news. The speed and scale of the pullout, withdrawal, redeployment, drawdown – or whatever the Obama administration wants to call it – places all the hard-won gains at risk. Instead of a time frame based on the situation on the ground, the president wants all 33,000 American “surge” troops home by next summer. Everyone – friend and enemy – knows the timing and the number in the pullout are being driven by next year’s U.S. presidential election. [Read more…] about Oliver North on the Afghanistan Pullout

Gary Brooks Faulkner; Remember Him?

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Gary Brooks FaulknerDoes anyone remember the name Gary Brooks Faulkner? Probably not. He was the lone American caught in Pakistan in June of 2010. Why was he there? He had taken it upon himself to hunt down Osama bin Laden.

Having suffered a loss from the attacks on 9-11, Gary felt it was his duty to carry out the hunt and kill bin Laden. Feelling as though the US government wasn’t doing enough, and that they were looking in all the wrong places, he armed himself with a sword, night-vision goggles and a book of Christian sayings and writings. It wan’t enough to just hunt him down and kill him, Faulkner wanted to behead Osama.

The scary thing about this story is just how close Gary was. Being dubbed the ‘American ninja,’ Faulkner seems to have been working with better intel than the guys that do it for a living. He was certainly on a better trail than what was being chased at the time.

Hopefully, for Faulkner, the news is sweeter than honey knowing that not only is bin Laden dead, but also just how close he was.

Obama And The Tipping Point

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There is no denying that America is facing a tipping point. And, at some point, enough will have been enough. But, on which front? Troops are still engaged in operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Now they face a possible operation in Libya as the turmoil continues.

Look, everyone knows that Qaddafi is a mad-man. He has killed his own people, and will continue as long as he is around. So, what does the future hold? Well, as fate would have it, we have a model that isn’t that old. And, if things continue the way some say, we are following it almost to a tee.

In 1991 we ‘stopped’ Saddam, but he stayed in power. What happened next? Well . . . We’re still there. We finally went in and got him, and now he’s a goner. But, with all the money that was spent to get him and liberate the Iraqis, and all the money that we are having to spend to re-build the country, we are amounting a huge amount of debt. And that’s exactly what they want. Hit us where it hurts, and that is in the pocket.

Well, the Iraq war was sold as a short strategic mission. Same as what we are told about Libya. Oops! Sorry, a ‘kinetic military action.’ What’s the difference? Nothing! One is simple to define, while the other is just an Orwellian attempt to appear neutral.

And, that neutrality is what will lead to the tipping point of sending in ground troops. Which questions, Why Libya? (Couldn’t he have just told the United Nations to take a hike?) The answer is simple. It is a strategy by the Obama machine to gain some level of popularity in an unfavorable upcoming 2012 election. His action, or lack of in most cases, is almost a mirror image of Bush. All that he opposed for Iraq, is leading him to accept the fact that his foreign policy approach to apologize is one if ignorance.

With so much Middle Eastern turmoil, and lack of direction from Obama, and his administration, in his laid back ideology has brought America to its knees. Once seen as a dominant global superpower, America is now seen as the whipped sister that the left has wished her to be for years.

So, as it seems, America has finally reached a tipping point as Obama; the Emperor without clothes has humpty-dumptied his way off the great wall, and is dithering his way off the golf course and into campaign mode, and for what? A kinetic military action, aka war, without any real direction to save himself for a 2012 run?

Afghanistan: Is there a way out?

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Gen. Petraeus on winning in Afghanistan

“I am concerned that funding for our State Department and USAID partners will not sufficiently enable them to build on the hard-fought security achievements of our men and women in uniform.  Inadequate resourcing of our civilian partners could, in fact, jeopardize accomplishment of the overall mission.” – Gen. Petraeus

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There is no denying that the conflict in Afghanistan needs to come to an end. However, that is where things fall apart. There appears to be no end in sight. The country has been at war for over thirty years, and ten of those have been with the United States and its allies. And, although their support has been steadily dwindling, their support to bring it to an end has not.

On the face, the US has been taking the military stance, with some political support, to help change the country. But, as well as the military has done, and with all the building they have done for the Afghan people, it still doesn’t fix the one thing that brought on the war. The leadership of the country. That is where the political pressure should have started to show some improvements. But the lack of involvement has left many question whether there is an end or not, and if the US will ever leave the country. After all, the US still maintains a military presence on the Korean Peninsula and has done so for more than fifty years. If that is any look into the future for operations in Afghanistan, it is clearly time to re-evaluate the mission.

Political direction and pressure have been stagnant, and there has been no signs of turning the page and allowing the Afghan government to take ownership and step up. Command in the military has been offering little in the way of ideas on how the transition could take place, and rightfully so. That should be on the shoulders of political figureheads. It is the Afghan people that are the ones suffering, and crying out for help. They want their country back, albeit without a US presence.

It is that presence that is giving the illusion that the United States is taking the position of ‘occupier.’ Which, in turn has put a sour taste in many. One being Gen. Petraeus, who has been a somewhat lonely voice on the issue of the Afghanistan leadership stepping up. And, without an Afghan government willing and able to take the bull by the horns. After all, a country that has been at war for thirty-plus years has a hard time learning anything new other than living a life of war.

So, with that, the question still remains: Is there a way out? There are many reasons why the US can’t just turn their backs as was done for Vietnam. However, it seems like the quickest way to end it. It seems that all sides want out, but no one is offering any real solutions.

General Petraeus to Leave Afghanistan by End of Year

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General PetraeusGeneral David Petraeus is expected to leave his post as commander of US troops in Afghanistan later this year. As the Pentagon looks to replace Petraeus, it is unknown who that person will be. And, whoever it may be will definately have a hard task at hand as they will have to navigate a tricky relationship with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani leaders.

“General Petraeus is doing a brilliant job but he’s been going virtually non-stop since 9/11 [and] he can’t do it for ever,” Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, told The Times.

“This is a heck of a demanding job,” Morrell said of General Petraeus’s central task of driving the Taliban from its strongholds in southern Afghanistan, which US commanders now claim is almost complete. “He will have to be rotated out at some point.”

So, what could be next for Petraeus?

Petraeus has been talked about for a while as a possible successor to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff  (CJCS),  who is expected to retire in October.  Any move would be part of a broader shake-up in the administration, which will also see Defense Secretary Robert Gates retire this year.

 

Who is the Enemy?

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by Patrick Buchanan

The Rev. Terry Jones may just have exposed the ultimate futility of America’s war in Afghanistan. Consider the portrait of frustrated impotence America presented to the world last week.

Our president and the secretaries of state and defense deplored Pastor Jones’ plan to burn 100 Qurans but could do nothing to stop him, other than to plead with him. Jones decided to call it off himself.

What was the message received by a billion Muslims?

“Muslims must understand that our Constitution protects the desecration of your holiest book. America is a place where people have a right to denounce Islam as a religion ‘of the Devil’ and burn the Quran in public.”

Continue reading . . .

Soldier Spotlight

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Chief Petty Officer Jeremy Torrisi

MARSOC corpsman receives Silver Star Medal for heroics in Afghanistan | Marines.mil

By Cpl. Richard Blumenstein, Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command 

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C.  — “You hear your buddies go down …You close your eyes… You think about everything … You hear you’re the only other corpsman. What would you do?”

Chief Petty Officer Jeremy K. Torrisi, a hospital corpsman with U.S. Marine Corps Forces, Special Operations Command, faced that question June 26, 2008 in the mountains of Afghanistan during the fiercest firefight of his life.

Torrisi saved the lives of four of his comrades and received the Silver Star Medal at the Courthouse Bay Gymnasium on Jan 21.

So far, one Navy Cross, two Silver Star Medals, and two Bronze Star Medals with combat distinguishing devices have been awarded in the battle’s aftermath.  

“I’m the one getting recognized today, but everybody knows, I hope, the story that went down that day; it wasn’t one person, it wasn’t two, it wasn’t three, it was everybody,” Torrisi said during the award ceremony. “Everybody doing their part. We have a lot of guys around today walking, talking, and breathing because of that. I was just part of the well-oiled machine that we were.”

Read about the battle HERE

Islam’s Primary Objective: Conquest

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by W. Thomas Smith Jr. | HumanEvents.com

Exclusive interview with Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, U.S. Army (Ret.), former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence

Retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, a former Delta Force officer who CBS’s 60 Minutes once dubbed “the Holy Warrior,” is a no-nonsense counterterrorist expert whom the television newsmagazine also said, “has probably seen as much combat as anyone in uniform.”

Indeed he has, having fought and led soldiers in several American wars and military expeditions since the invasion of Grenada. He was the commander of Delta Force in the bloody battle of Mogadishu. He went on to serve as Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. He’s the author of the just-released novel, “Danger Close.” And he’s an outspoken and unapologetic Christian, who believes America can succeed in the war on terror, but some serious mistakes — not the least of which is a public ignorance of who the enemy is — must be corrected.

This week we sat down with Boykin and discussed everything from Afghanistan to the proposed mosque near ‘ground zero’ in New York.

Continue interview HERE

$1 Trillion in Afghanistan Minerals Deposits?

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Floating around mainstream media is the report of a recent find of mineral deposits in Afghanistan that could equal $1 Trillion or more.  But, is there more to this report than just tag lines?

In a story posted at Foreign Policy:

According to Saleh, Karzai no longer believes the West can win the war and is looking to cast his lot with Pakistan and the Taliban; an unnamed source told the paper that Karzai had suggested that the Americans had carried out a rocket attack on the peace jirga. Karzai has apparently also asked the United Nations to remove Mullah Omar from a key U.N. blacklist.Next came revelations that Pakistan’s powerful military intelligence agency, the ISI, is still deeply involved with the Afghan Taliban (yeah, blow me over with a feather) despite heated denials to the contrary.

Meanwhile, the drive for Kandahar looks to be stalled in the face of questionable local support for Karzai’s government, the Taliban is killing local authorities left and right, and the corruption situation has apparently gotten so bad that the U.S. intelligence community is now keeping tabs on which Afghan officials are stealing what.

Now, that doesn’t sound good for the United States. Which leads to pondering such a question: “Was this story delayed by the media for an instance like this?”

How the NYTimes puts it:

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

In the same article:

The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said.

While it could take many years to develop a mining industry, the potential is so great that officials and executives in the industry believe it could attract heavy investment even before mines are profitable, providing the possibility of jobs that could distract from generations of war.

“There is stunning potential here,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of the United States Central Command, said in an interview on Saturday. “There are a lot of ifs, of course, but I think potentially it is hugely significant.”

The value of the newly discovered mineral deposits dwarfs the size of Afghanistan’s existing war-bedraggled economy, which is based largely on opium production and narcotics trafficking as well as aid from the United States and other industrialized countries. Afghanistan’s gross domestic product is only about $12 billion.

“This will become the backbone of the Afghan economy,” said Jalil Jumriany, an adviser to the Afghan minister of mines.

American and Afghan officials agreed to discuss the mineral discoveries at a difficult moment in the war in Afghanistan. The American-led offensive in Marja in southern Afghanistan has achieved only limited gains. Meanwhile, charges of corruption and favoritism continue to plague the Karzai government, and Mr. Karzai seems increasingly embittered toward the White House.

So the Obama administration is hungry for some positive news to come out of Afghanistan. Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a double-edged impact.

Instead of bringing peace, the newfound mineral wealth could lead the Taliban to battle even more fiercely to regain control of the country.

Take a moment to review the hidden messages that have been highlighted in bold. Newfound untapped mineral deposits that were newly discovered from previously known reserves? What? Certainly there is more here, right?

Fox News is quick to point out:

The report in the Times said the U.S. Geological Survey began aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using data that had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Promising results led to a more sophisticated study the next year.

They are referencing the same article quoted earlier, when the NYTimes reported:

Like much of the recent history of the country, the story of the discovery of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is one of missed opportunities and the distractions of war.

In 2004, American geologists, sent to Afghanistan as part of a broader reconstruction effort, stumbled across an intriguing series of old charts and data at the library of the Afghan Geological Survey in Kabul that hinted at major mineral deposits in the country. They soon learned that the data had been collected by Soviet mining experts during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, but cast aside when the Soviets withdrew in 1989.

During the chaos of the 1990s, when Afghanistan was mired in civil war and later ruled by the Taliban, a small group of Afghan geologists protected the charts by taking them home, and returned them to the Geological Survey’s library only after the American invasion and the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.

“There were maps, but the development did not take place, because you had 30 to 35 years of war,” said Ahmad Hujabre, an Afghan engineer who worked for the Ministry of Mines in the 1970s.

Armed with the old Russian charts, the United States Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006, using advanced gravity and magnetic measuring equipment attached to an old Navy Orion P-3 aircraft that flew over about 70 percent of the country.

The data from those flights was so promising that in 2007, the geologists returned for an even more sophisticated study, using an old British bomber equipped with instruments that offered a three-dimensional profile of mineral deposits below the earth’s surface. It was the most comprehensive geologic survey of Afghanistan ever conducted.

The handful of American geologists who pored over the new data said the results were astonishing.

But the results gathered dust for two more years, ignored by officials in both the American and Afghan governments. In 2009, a Pentagon task force that had created business development programs in Iraq was transferred to Afghanistan, and came upon the geological data. Until then, no one besides the geologists had bothered to look at the information — and no one had sought to translate the technical data to measure the potential economic value of the mineral deposits.

The Networked Enemy; The New Way of War

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Everyday people are studying the actions and commands of the forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, trying to understand not only the American forces but also those of the enemy. One such idea that does not seem to be going away is that of the age of information. When used correctly it can be the deciding factor.

John Arquilla, writer at Foreign Policy, took a look into this very issue:

Even the implications of maturing tanks, planes, and the radio waves that linked them were only partially understood by the next generation of military men. Just as their predecessors failed to grasp the lethal nature of firepower, their successors missed the rise of mechanized maneuver — save for the Germans, who figured out that blitzkrieg was possible and won some grand early victories. They would have gone on winning, but for poor high-level strategic choices such as invading Russia and declaring war on the United States. In the end, the Nazis were not so much outfought as gang-tackled.

Nuclear weapons were next to be misunderstood, most monumentally by a U.S. military that initially thought they could be employed like any other weapons. But it turned out they were useful only in deterring their use. Surprisingly, it was cold warrior Ronald Reagan who had the keenest insight into such weapons when he said, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

Which brings us to war in the age of information. The technological breakthroughs of the last two decades — comparable in world-shaking scope to those at the Industrial Revolution’s outset two centuries ago — coincided with a new moment of global political instability after the Cold War. Yet most militaries are entering this era with the familiar pattern of belief that new technological tools will simply reinforce existing practices.

In the U.S. case, senior officials remain convinced that their strategy of “shock and awe” and the Powell doctrine of “overwhelming force” have only been enhanced by the addition of greater numbers of smart weapons, remotely controlled aircraft, and near-instant global communications. Perhaps the most prominent cheerleader for “shock and awe” has been National Security Advisor James Jones, the general whose circle of senior aides has included those who came up with the concept in the 1990s. Their basic idea: “The bigger the hammer, the better the outcome.”

Nothing could be further from the truth, as the results in Iraq and Afghanistan so painfully demonstrate. Indeed, a decade and a half after my colleague David Ronfeldt and I coined the term “netwar” to describe the world’s emerging form of network-based conflict, the United States is still behind the curve. The evidence of the last 10 years shows clearly that massive applications of force have done little more than kill the innocent and enrage their survivors. Networked organizations like al Qaeda have proven how easy it is to dodge such heavy punches and persist to land sharp counterblows.

While it is a good article, the one thing it does not address is the ability for a force as large and complex as that of the United States to utilize the ability to use the network-based communication idea and apply it against the enemy.

That is the one advantage the Taliban and Al-Qaeda have over the American forces. They are smaller and network, or communicate, better between each other while American forces are left to wait for information to filter down through its complex command structure. The current age of technology has been proven as an avenue to dispense information. Social media sites have taken over as an informal way to share information, and it is only a matter of time for a more secure means to surface.