Shocking News! Snipers Can Slow Our Troops

The MSM including the Los Angeles Times and the old, reliable NYT have been hyperventilating. The cause has been the increased use of snipers by Taliban as the troops advance into Marja.

While it is true that Taliban trigger pullers have not and are not noted for their marksmanship over the past several years, the tradition of accurate shooting has never been completely lost by the Afghans. Nor did the American and British troops anticipate that they would be facing only a hail of relatively inaccurate light automatic weapons fire.

Snipers have been a feature of all wars--including the many which have been fought by foreigners in Afghanistan over the past century and a half. British soldiers were repeatedly taken under heavy and effective sniper fire during their various punitive expeditions during the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. So also were the Russian troops in the long years of agony in the 1980s.

American offensive operations in South Vietnam repeatedly encountered sniper fire from designated "stay behind" operators whose function in life was that of delaying the American advances. Quite often a large US operation was stalled, even stopped, by a very small number of snipers firing from carefully chosen and well concealed positions. It was not unusual for an entire battalion to come to a halt after taking a few incoming rounds from a Charley in a tree.

At that time the answer, indeed, "the school solution" was for all hands to squat down and wait until an airstrike or two leveled the offensive piece of real estate. Then the grunts could get a wiggle on. Until the next Chuck in the bush pulled the trigger a couple of times.

As a result the planned operation slowed to a glacial pace. The unacceptability of friendly losses coupled with the ready availability of heavy air and indirect ground fire dictated the stop-wait-bomb-go approach. The assorted journalists viewing the little bit of war did not seem ready to declare an impending American defeat as a consequence of this cautious way of war fighting.

In Afghanistan the US has wisely chosen not to use its overwhelming air and indirect firepower given the presence of civilian non-combatants in the area of operations. Thus we cannot follow the Vietnam era style of calling in the fast movers and gunships or the far off artillery to abate the sniper nuisance.

Since risking American (or British or Afghan) lives is not desirable and the use of heavy weapons unacceptable the result is ground movement will be very, very slow. This result in no way implies either that the US and other troops are "imperiled" (to use the NYT phrase) or that the Marja offensive is failing.

Perhaps the reporters and editors of the various MSM find success by the American side to be boring, lacking news value, or otherwise unimportant. Or, possibly the writers and their supervisors stateside are simply unaware of the realities of ground combat. In any event the slanting of the coverage is both inaccurate and unnecessary.

The real deal is that snipers and mines (a category which includes those of the IED sort) encourage slow, cautious movement by the guys on the sharp end of things. Both snipers and mines require a strong sense of individual and group resolve and a very great commitment to the skills of observation and patience as well as possession of rapid reflexes. Working against snipers and mines is emotionally draining, physically exhausting, and lacks the rewards of, say, a breathless assault powered by adrenaline and testosterone in equal measure.

To be successful an infantry offensive operation requires only that you keep on advancing--and the other side keeps on dying or retreating. There is no requirement that speed records be shattered in the process. High speed, protracted movement is appropriate, even necessary for armored units operating in an open, civilian-free venue, but not in an infantry attack in an urban area where women, children, and other non-combatants are conspicuous by their presence.

To date all the meaningful indicators from Marja and environs point to the methodical combined actions of the US Marines, British Army, and Afghan National Forces being successful. Ground is being occupied. Taliban are being killed, captured, or forced to flee. Civilians are not being caught in the crossfire--despite the best efforts of Taliban to compel that consequence.

Marja is demonstrating once again that steady, disciplined, highly trained, and well motivated troops can effectively execute even the most demanding of operations against even an enemy who is not limited by concerns for his life or those of civilians. The British Army and American Marines are noted among the military forces of the world for the excellence of their discipline and steadiness, the level of their training and leadership--and their ability to get on with the mission no matter the nature or degree of difficulty.

It is unfortunate in the extreme that the established media of the world, particularly in the US and UK, have not gotten a firm grip on the fundamental realities of the war in Helmand. It is regrettable to say the least that so many in the MSM wring their hands over threats that do not exist and seem so willing to predict a defeat which cannot occur.

I Wannabe A "Martyr"

The Pakistani Interior Minister has confirmed the long running buzz that Hakimullah Mehsud had joined his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud in Paradise courtesy of an American Predator strike. Almost immediately Taliban in Pakistan announced a new entry in the I-Wannabe-A-Martyr sweepstakes. The new guy is Noor Jamal who goes by the moniker, "Mullah Toofan".

"Mullah Toofan" is a very bad guy whose previous claims to fame have been based on his video performances in the roll of whip wielding thug and Decapitator First Class. His able right arm and skills with sword and knife have made him a feared figure among the Taliban's Mighty Warriors of Allah. His oratorical skills are also of the requisite sort as he has made many mighty threats against both the infidel "Crusaders" and the assorted "apostates" of Pakistan. While he has not yet reached the rarefied levels of Osama bin Laden as an analyst of American culpability in "global warming," he is very good at demanding death to Americans, Westerners, and indigenous perverting backsliders from Islam (as he understands the religion.)

With the official job title of "acting" capo d' tutti capi, "Mullah Toofan" can put his skills of "killing humans as others kill chickens" (as one local villager reportedly described matters) to work on behalf of an armed group which has seen hard times of late. The Pakistani Army did kill a number of Taliban trigger pullers during their less than blitz-like campaigns in Swat and South Waziristan even if it has been reluctant to say the least to continue the move into the sanctuary zone of North Waziristan.

It is highly probable that the new guy will continue the policies of his two predecessors. This means Pakistan will have more suicide bombings, more mass killings, more attacks on even presumably secure, hard targets such as military and police installations. It also means that Taliban will continue to make itself increasingly detested within large segments of the local population. Whether in the FATA or the major cities of the country, the Taliban's willingness to kill has become not a strength but a potentially fatal weakness.

"Mullah Toofan" will also have to deal with the effects of Operation Moshtarak. The US Marines, British Army, and Afghan National Forces are moving in on the Taliban stronghold of Marjah in Helmand province. While the fight will be tough, the end result will see a goodly number of surviving Taliban fighters cross the border into "Mullah Toofan's" territory. Given the nature of Taliban in Pakistan's command and control system, logistics, and overall organizational perturbation, the influx of defeated guerrillas from Afghanistan will be a further cause of overall weakness.

The Pakistani Army and government have long been apprehensive regarding the proposed US/ISAF/ANF operations in Helmand as it would cause a massive flow of turban-topped, bearded Koran wavers into the FATA--particularly North Waziristan. Now that push-comes-to-shove time is upon them, the Pakistani leadership will have to decide whether or not to reconceptualize the cross border movement as an opportunity rather than a threat.

The very best time to land a heavy, perhaps fatal, blow on Taliban in Pakistan is one of confusion and disorder within Taliban ranks. The combination of ever-new senior commanders, loss of many experienced mid-level personnel, past pressure from the army of Pakistan, and the arrival of a mob of defeated (but not necessarily demoralized) Taliban gun slingers beating feet ahead of the "infidels" provides the best possible basis for neutralizing the Thugs For Mohammad as a military force.

If the Pakistani Army (and its government) can show a capacity for movement faster than that of a snail with a hernia and an offensive orientation transcending that of a rabbit, the next four to six weeks could see Taliban put on the ropes as an armed threat to Islamabad. Of course the capacity to move aggressively requires a political will to do so on the part of the government and army alike.

It is legitimate to doubt that sufficient will exists or will exist in the near-term. There are too many Islamists in both the government and army for effective political will aimed at the ending of Taliban in either Pakistan or Afghanistan to take root and flourish.

Along with the presence of Islamists and sympathizers with Islamism there is another factor enervating any effective Pakistani focus on Taliban. That factor is India. More properly it is the apparent inability of the Pakistani elite to get beyond India as the only "enemy" confronting the country. Or, to narrow the focus slightly, the problem is the willingness of many in the political and military elites of Pakistan to risk the continuation of the country in its present form in order to pursue a chimera--the conquest of Kashmir.

Irredentism is a risky basis for policy. More than a few countries in the West have discovered this truth over the years. The astigmatism shown by many individuals in Pakistan regarding Kashmir show that they have not profited by the final failure of irredentism where it has existed before.

Between Islamism and irredentism there is no real probability that Pakistan will take full--or any--advantage from the opportunities being handed them by American Predators and Operation Moshtarak. That, bucko, is the unfortunate truth about our "allies" in the war against al-Qaeda and Taliban.

Push Comes To Shove Time For Taliban

Reversing the customary military practice of secrecy prior to the launch of a campaign, the US, UK, and their Afghan and NATO partners have announced in advance not only where but when they plan to open up in a major way on Taliban. The public announcements which have been carried around the world were not just a good idea, they were a brilliant ploy.

General McChrystal has made a priority of protecting Afghan civilians from war's devastation. The announcement has made sure that beaucoup noncombatants are leaving the projected zone of operations in Helmand province focusing on the city of Lashkar Gah.

Operation Moshtarak bodes to be not only one of the largest but perhaps most decisive actions in the long, long, long and previously poorly waged war. The exodus of civilians from the area, which has been a center of both Taliban strength and opium production for years, is an essential for the operations success. Knowing this the Talib forces have sought not only to prevent civilian departure but to so intimidate the local population that it could use civilians as shields against the allied troops.

No one has ever accused Afghans of being particularly slow on the uptake when it is their lives which are on the line. The last generation or so of constant warfare has honed the sense of self-preservation to a fine edge which has been in no way dulled by the Taliban's Islamist views of the love of death being more godly than a love of life. Thus, the massive display of a very timely "feet don't fail me now" mentality on the part of the civilians.

Encouragement for the flood of departure has been provided by the highly visible preparatory moves by the British troops as well as the US Marines. In this area the Brits have been the more deliberately obvious as they have staged "shaping" operations in recent days. There can be little doubt that any civilians watching these preparatory moves would find a potent reason to have important and pressing business elsewhere.

The British Army in large measure due to its superb training, very high quality leadership at all levels from the section to the brigade, unit cohesion, presents a picture of uncompromising, remorseless dedication to victory which gives it a powerful moral ascendancy over its opponents. While the Taliban are not the Argentinians of the Falkland Island fracas, they cannot be immune to the looming reality of defeat, purposeless "martyrdom," and final futility.

In a very real way the British Army is better than the legends of the Texas Rangers. (You might remember the yarn of a Ranger saying, "No one can stop a man who knows he is in the right and keeps on coming.") Even when let down by their political masters, provided with deficient or inadequate equipment, the British other ranks and the officers leading them are more than willing to "keep on coming" even against an enemy qualitatively superior. (Think Western Desert before Monty came along.)

The same may be said of the US Marines who are taking the biggest combat bite. As fighters the Marines are undeniably at the top of the heap. Looking back at the debacle in Vietnam, the historian can only conclude that the Marines of Eye Corps did the most successful, continuous, effective heavy lifting of the war--even though the Marine grunt had a bit less than a fifty-fifty chance of getting through his thirteen month tour both undead and unwounded.

With many civilians out of the way, both the Marines and the British Army have a good to excellent chance of macerating the Taliban despite prepared IEDs, fortified villages, and suicide bombers. Taliban will take a lickin' and most probably will not keep on tickin'.

Of course the operation will not be a walk over for either the Americans or the British. The good guys will take a hit--perhaps even a heavy one. In exchange the war in Afghanistan may very well have finally reached a necessary turning point. At the end of the op the Taliban may finally realize that there is no way it can achieve a military victory over the "infidels."

The biggest unknown of the upcoming fracas is the performance of the Afghan National Army. The attached Afghan force is comprised of units which have reached the highest level of training performance. But, as anyone who has felt his balls creep upward as an angry round flies by, "all training is simulated."

If the Afghan units perform successfully there is real reason to hope for the timely achievement of the minimum necessary American (and British) strategic goal: not-losing. A successful performance by the Afghan National Force would also provide substance to the concept of an Afghan polity. Finally, it would give Afghanistan a genuine national institution transcending most tribal, ethnic, linguistic identities. It would show the Afghan National Force to be what George Washington said of the post-Revolutionary War US Army, "a school for citizenship."

Should the US, UK, NATO, and Afghan forces come out way on top in the upcoming campaign, there is reason to believe that Taliban would seek to find a political accommodation with the Kabul government. As everyone realizes no internal war can be finally decided by only military means. Military operations may lead to hostilities termination but only a process of political accommodation can bring about conflict resolution.

In short, the military must smash Taliban sufficiently that the leadership is willing to accept the messy process of reaching compromise outcomes with the in-power regime. The regime must also accept that it cannot kill its way to unchallenged authority and settle for operational dominance of the nation.

At the moment Karzai seems inclined to accept that reality--if his words can be taken at face value. His less than spectacularly legitimate regime can do no other if it wants to stay in power--which it does ever so much.

Operation Moshtarak will not in and of itself bring about hostilities termination. That will take more operations, more yomping the mountains and deserts, more killing, more dying.

This implies that the essential nature of the contest in Afghanistan has not altered. At root, it is a battle of political will between the Afghan supporters of Taliban and the publics of the US, UK, and other Western countries. If we in the US or our counterparts in the UK and elsewhere lose heart before Taliban comes to grip with the new realities, then all the bravery, sacrifice, and effort will go for nothing.

While chewing on that basic truth we must consider another. When the day of conflict resolution finally arrives, the Afghanistan which emerges will not be some sort of imitation Western democracy with pluralism, tolerance, free institutions, an independent judiciary, and shopping malls. It will be a mess not unlike contemporary Iraq. When the shooting stops Afghanistan will still be heavily tribal, strongly Islamist, stone broke, and reactionary in many ways.

The best that can be hoped for is that Afghanistan in the future will not repeat the fatal error of Taliban chieftain Omar and extend "Islamic" hospitality and protection to an Osama bin Laden or a group such as al-Qaeda. Not a lofty end to envision, but a highly necessary one.

You Gotta Wonder How Serious Karzai Is

It is not unusual to read a piece in the NYT gleefully predicting defeat for the US in either or both Iraq and Afghanistan. It seems to be sort of mea culpa for having thumped the war drum so hard before the invasion of Iraq.

There are times when the Tales of Cassandra ring accurate and true. This is one of them. It passes the test of Inherent Probability. It was even foreshadowed.

The article details the difficulties, not to say flat impossibilities being confronted by one small, which is to say, understrength Marine battalion in the rugged, dry, hot terrain of Helmand Province. The impossible situation has been created by the Afghan government, which has not provided any of the civic action, police, or military units promised. These missing Afghan assets are the key to long term success in the region and thus in Afghanistan generally.

The Marines are able to provide an austere sort of security but nothing more. Their job was to clear the area of Taliban and then to provide the backbone of a "hold" strategy which depended upon Afghan Army and police forces for its full effect. The Marine shield was presumed to provide a cover for civilians and civilian action in the areas of government, education, and health care.

Well, the Marines are there. Taliban has withdrawn. But, the critical Afghan personnel both military and civilian are major non-participants. The police unit sent to the area was undermanned, untrained, tainted with criminal activity, and counterproductive in effect. The thirty man detail dispatched by the Afghan Army believed it was in the area for a little R&R before going somewhere else to fight. The health care, governmental, and educational folks never came to the party.

As a result the civilians (stand by for enormous shock) are sitting on the fence, happy to see Taliban gone but fearful of what will happen when (not if) the Marines leave. Taliban is not known for its charitable treatment of those it deems "apostates" due to cooperation with the foreign forces. The Marines are working with due diligence to gain the trust and cooperation of the locals, but the chance of developing the mechanisms let alone the record of mutual trust is low absent the Afghan portion of the mission.

As if to counterpoint the crucial nature of this microcosm of what gives the surface impression of having been a successful offensive campaign into Helmand by the Marines and their British colleagues, Admiral Mullen today described the situation in Afghanistan as "serious and deteriorating." How right he is.

As the Geek pointed out in a post last month, among the reasons for a (high potential) US defeat in Afghanistan are the unwillingness and inability of the Karzai government to cooperate effectively with the US and other foreign forces coupled with Karzai's basic imperative to stay in power no matter what it takes--including cutting deals tacit or otherwise with Taliban and al-Qaeda. At least one if not both of these considerations were at work when the offensive into Helmand commenced last month. The Afghan National Army and other pledged forces were missing in a significant way at the starting line.

The longer term implications of this Afghan lack of will or ability to wage war against the Islamist jihadists are all resident in the minor slice of life presented in the Times piece. As the Geek has said and written until he is both blue of face and arthritic of finger is that the locals finally win or lose the counterinsurgent conflict. It is up to them to make the "better state of peace" which must ensue if the end of hostilities marks the beginnings of conflict resolution.

The actions and attitudes of much (but not all) of the Karzai government hints that the idea of hostilities termination and conflict resolution currently held in Kabul is not simply one of power sharing, which isn't bad in and of itself, but rather some sort of surrender which leaves Karzai at the top of the heap--at least for some sort of "decent interval." This sort of delusional "peace without victors" has a genuine appeal for the Karzai government--and many others in Afghanistan, including Taliban.

While this endgame may be suitable from the perspective of Kabul, it is most certainly not so from an American point of view. Anything, any settlement, any hostilities termination which has the slightest odor of an American defeat attached will simply encourage other Islamist jihadists. Admiral Mullen must be aware of this ramification as he stated on a different TV talk fest that the primary American focus was on disrupting al-Qaeda and Taliban, which remain the single greatest threat confronting the US today.

Islamist jihadism takes courage from the slightest hint of failing political will and diminishing military capacity on the part of any of its enemies, headed, of course, by the US. This is what is at stake in Afghanistan.

Building a democracy, or assuring human (particularly women's) rights, developing the economic base in Afghanistan are all nice. But, they are not essential to US national and strategic interest. Even undercutting the production of opium falls in the "nice but not necessary" category. There is only one compelling reason for Americans to fight and die in that chunk of unpleasant real estate--the military defeat of Taliban, al-Qaeda, and any other Islamist jihadists polluting the place.

The war we are fighting is not against terrorism qua terrorism. Nor is it a war for freedom, democracy, and prosperity in Afghanistan.

The war we are fighting, the "war of necessity" as President Obama correctly termed it, is against Taliban, al-Qaeda and Islamist jihadism generally. It is a matter of defeating the hydra there or facing more of its heads elsewhere and elsewhen.

That's the brutal truth of the matter. Get a firm grip on it.