The Loonies Keep On Running The Asylum--And One Exception

By nature and education the Geek is a historian.  Specifically he is a historian of military, diplomatic, and national security affairs and affrays.  This means he has a broad vicarious experience with the idiocies, asininities, and flat out lunacies which have characterized the policies and actions of the US and other governments over the past few centuries.  In the direct experience department the Geek has witnessed up close and personal the witlessness of the same over a period of more than thirty years.

The Geek mentions these salient parts of his life neither to brag nor to buff his credibility in writing on the contemporary morass of US foreign, military, intelligence, and related policies.  Rather, it is to underscore his high tolerance for emotional and intellectual suffering.  Of late even this capacity has been sorely tested, tested beyond its Young's Modulus even.

The Obama administration is responsible for this unpleasant and unprecedented moment in the Geek's long and peripatetic life.  The Nice Young Man From Chicago and his numerous ideological soulmates as well as various and sundry mid-level minions have been involved in a farrago of ineptitude which not only boggle the mind but demand an impossible degree of willing suspension of disbelief if to be taken as the product of mature and considered judgement.

One illustration of the dynamics in play is the Don't-Touch-My-Junk explosion.  More accurately, it is the response of the TSA to the stand by one man in San Diego's airport.

The necessary starting point in any assessment of the TSA, or its parent outfit, Der Heimatsicherheitsamt to the unexpected Peasants' Revolt epitomized by the the Hero of "Don't touch my junk!" is simply acknowledging the foundation truth that the humiliation of passengers in the name of security adds not one whit of genuine safety to airline travel.  The "Strip or Grope" mentality is as functional in providing security as would be mammary glands on a bull.

While it is unfashionable in the social and political circles in which Mr Obama and his fellow travelers are welcome, the circles established by the self-appointed elites of academia, journalism, and the law, the down and dirty truth is airline security is threatened by a discrete and definable segment of the human race.  The nature of this segment is made clear in a recent report by one of those "executive security" consultancies.  The report (the Geek knows he should have a link here, but he made a series of wrong clicks and lost it--a misdemeanor augmented by his extreme laziness which precludes going back to find it) showed that in nine of the top ten terrorist infested countries, the terrorists were adherents of violent political Islam.  (The lone exception was Columbia.)

Anyway the cookie is crumbled, the vast majority of terrorist actions over the years since 9/11 (and most of the preceding twenty as well) were perpetrated by Muslims, practitioners of violent political Islam, AKA jihadis, jihadists, Islamists, Islamic separatists, radical extremists, and a host of other more or less euphemistic monikers.  This rather excludes most customers of American airlines.

To put it terms even one of the high school dropouts recruited by TSA: Potential terrorists are not randomly distributed among the population of the US.  Even when considering the problem of homegrown wannabe martyrs, the potential threat is limited to a very small and quite discrete group: Muslims.

This implies strongly that focusing efforts on the small population will not only save the majority of travelers from the studied humiliation and degradation of the "strip or grope" policy but have a far greater chance of actually stopping or deterring potential martyrdom seekers.  To put it in a politically incorrect way: Profiling is the answer.

Anyone with any experience in security, intelligence, or street policing--and many who lack that sort of hands-on experience--can attest that profiling is used everywhere and everyday by everyone responsible for law enforcement, security, and intelligence.  Heck, it is used everyday by all of us when deciding if we should cross the street to avoid an oncoming stranger--or answer a knock on the door in the hours of darkness.

Profiling is not racist.  It is not xenophobic.  It is an experience based means of rapidly and effectively organizing data, putting perceptions into a useful pattern, making quick and accurate appraisals of unexpected encounters.  It is part of the quotidian human experience.

The methods of identifying potential high risk travelers have been well established and are capable of continuous refinement.  The use of augmented profiling techniques by well trained and field experienced individuals has been use for years in Europe.  (The Geek has always been impressed by the virtually invisible middle aged men standing in a concourse observing while not seeming to do so, scanning the crowd for the one in a million or so people who is in genuine need of enhanced screening.)

Were it not for the ideology of hyper-sensitivity in American politics today, we would be doing the same, openly and proudly.  Were it not for the unintended but predictable consequences of the "politics of victimization" produced by the civil rights movement of the Sixties, we would be free to profile away and by doing so both enhance internal security and public trust in the organs of state.

Absent profiling and with a massive contempt for the public it is supposed to "protect," the TSA has fallen back on a defense in depth approach to guarding its sovereign authority to act the part of the bully.  As part of its defense the Tyrants have proudly trumpeted the "fact" that their screening has prevented 130 "dangerous or illegal" items from being brought on board aircraft.  The Tyrants would not identify the items, citing "security concerns" but did mention a ceramic knife and--hang on for this one, its a hoot--a hypodermic needle and syringe containing heroin.

Now heroin may be illegal, but is it a security threat?  A danger to the traveling public?  Does someone over at TSA or DHS envision the passenger rushing the cockpit, kicking in the reinforced door and then, while shouting, "Smackheads Rule!" running up both pilots with an OD?  Wowie!  Zowie!  Bet old Osama wishes he had thought of that one.

It is to be hoped that the Peasants' Revolt, the Don't-Touch-My-Junk movement will call a time out in the lunacy of TSA.  One can hope that it will occasion a rethinking of domestic air security so that manpower and money will be focused, focused on the real threats--the contents of the cargo bins and the intentions of individuals who meet the criteria of experienced based profiling.

Loony strike number two.  Think Pakistan.  As we all know from the uncountable assurances from usually credible people such as Secretary of Defense Gates and Secretary of State Clinton, Pakistan is not only our good ally in a common struggle against violent political Islam, but any "bad" things once done by the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have been ended.  If those warranties were not enough then we must all be quieted in our apprehensions by the repeated statements from Pakistani officials to the effect that even if ISI had backed Taliban and the Haqqani network in the past, the boys in spookland were no longer doing so.

Right, dude, fer sure.

Comes now an article in The Nation which is hardly a bastion of right wing nut rantings.  The article details the direct involvement of ISI in the daily affairs of the Haqqani network and Taliban in Afghanistan.  Specifically, the article recounts the role played by ISI as a peacmaker between rival factions following the escape of NYT reporter David Rohde from his Afghan captors.  As the account deals with actions taken in recent months, the announcements of ISI's change of heart are, shall we say, called into doubt.

The reality is far divorced from the soothing mood music played without letup by the current administration and its assorted factotums or apologists.  Pakistan is not, repeat, not an ally in a common cause with the US and other civilized states.  It is a country the government of which is pursuing a narrowly defined national interest in Afghanistan which runs counter to the goals of both the Afghans and the US.  Pakistan's government and military cooperate with the US only to the minimal extent necessary to facilitate the flow of cash from Washington to Islamabad.

Unless and until the administration rectifies its totally erroneous stance regarding Pakistan, the effort in Afghanistan will be prolonged unnecessarily.  It is past time for President Obama to engage in some of that "hand to hand combat" which he seemed to relish with respect to Republicans only a few weeks ago but this time with Pakistan.  It is past time for the US to "tilt" even more in the direction of India.  It is past time for the US to let the Pakistanis know without any doubt that the days of the money flood are over.  It is past time for the administration to tell the Pakistanis clearly that unless they play we will no longer pay.

Lunacy, it has been argued, consists of doing the same thing over and over again even though the action brings no positive result.  That has been the case with our policy to Pakistan.  Just because the George W. Bush administration got it dead wrong in Pakistan is no excuse for the current bunch to keep on making the same disastrous mistakes.  Obama maintained that he was different from George W.  It is time he make it so regarding Pakistan.

Now for the one exception.  The US Marines are bringing fourteen M1 tanks to their area of operations.  This  move was first desired more than a year ago when the jarheads first entered Afghanistan in force.  At the time it was denied for fear it might alienate the locals with their memories of the armor heavy Soviet forces back in the Eighties.  The Marines renewed their request in recent months.  This time it was approved by General Petraeus.

He made the right call.

Generally armor is not too useful in counterinsurgency operations but in the present case it represents an important addition to the Marine's combat capacities.  The 120mm main gun on the M1 provides a long range, instant response direct fire capability quite useful in the open terrain areas currently under Marine tactical responsibility.  The direct fire is more accurate than indirect fire from artillery.  The tanks can move with the troops and be available faster than air delivered fire.  Finally, the accuracy of the 120 will limit the probability of collateral civilian casualties.

Fourteen tanks is not a massive number.  Most Afghans, even those in the Marine TAOR will be unaware of their presence.  Certainly the introduction of a company of MBTs is not a sign of desperation or impending defeat.  Rather, it is a belated and easily justified move which will tilt the advantage further in the favor of the Americans and their in-country ally.

The exception here underscores the sheer lunacy extant at the policy levels of the US government.  If only the folks topside had as firm a grip on the realities of the world as do the Marines and General Petraeus, we would all be better off.  Perhaps the difference between the realistic views down the food chain and the what-planet-are-they-living-on? perspectives demonstrated at the top arises from the fact that the guys way down deal with real matters, matters of winning or losing, living or dieing while Mr Obama and his associates have been breathing overly rarefied air, the air of the elite so long their brains have suffered as a result.

Life behind well polished desks or around glittering conference tables leads to a fatal lack of appreciating the exigencies of life in the real world.  The Marines and those responsible for their lives have lived long in the most grueling of environments.  As a result they lack the luxury so available to those at the highest level of government--the luxury of ignoring reality and embracing lunacy.

What Kind Of War Will We Be Fighting?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently called for an evaluation of the role, mission, and configuration of the Marine Corps. At roughly the same time he suggested the Navy needed to reconsider its needs and, presumably, its role in future wars. While being less direct (in recent weeks) regarding both Army and Air Force, the soon to be outgoing SecDef has clearly questioned the current postures and mission orientation of both services.

The subtext of Dr Gates' push to reconfiguration consists of two questions. What kind(s) of war will the US be fighting in the next couple of decades? What is the current and projected state of play regarding the relative supremacy of offense and defense?

No aspect of human endeavor better fits the Hegelian dialectic then does the relation of offense and defense in warfare. Every new thesis of offense calls an antithesis of defense into existence. And, the new defense summons a synthesis of offense. So the wheel turns.

The celebration of the defense got a boost recently with the widespread and breathless discussion of the new Chinese wonder weapon, a highly accurate anti-ship ballistic missile. The couch potato admirals, not all of whom were Chinese, gleefully decided the new, untested missile would make US naval force projection utterly impossible within a thousand klicks or so of the Chinese landmass.

Any number of pundits who have never heard a shot fired in anger weighed in with a pornographically precise description of just how the new system would neutralize the Nimitz class carriers should any make so bold as to come over to the Chinese half of the Pacific Ocean. The first incoming conventional warhead would "kill" the Nimitz class as a weapons system by wrecking its capacity for air operations. The second would nail the ship's propulsive system turning the monumentally expensive and complex ship into a umpteen thousand ton hulk. Then, missile number three would speedily dispatch the hulk to Davy Jones' locker.

Badda-bing! That's all she wrote. End of the US as the number one maritime power. Might as well surrender to the Trolls of Beijing now and avoid the mess later.

Of course this dystopian view depends upon a number of assumptions--all of them quite questionable.

The first is that the US Navy knows utterly nothing about how to play hide-and-seek in the vast expanses of the ocean. Next, the it's-all-over-with crowd seems to believe that there is no way the US could possibly exploit any of the numerous opportunities to perturb, spoof, spiel, or otherwise degrade the extensive C4ISR system(s) which would be required to support the missile. Finally, the proponents of imminent American naval defeat ignore the demonstrated ABM and ASAT capacities of the Aegis supported Standard missile as well as the improvement curve expected over the next few years.

(Oh, yes, they also failed to note the status of directed energy weapon research, development, and deployment as if that is somehow less relevant than the still far from IOC ready Chinese ship-killer.)

The saga of the Chinese super-weapon or at least its portrayal in assorted American and foreign media should be seen as an excellent illustration of an important ground truth. The Hegelian dialectic, the yin and yang of offense and defense is never a finished process. It is always the big wheel that keeps on moving.

The same is true with respect to amphibious forcible entry. In his assessment of the Marine Corps need for a review of its main missions, Dr Gates contended that the days of storming the beach were over. The secretary averred improvements in anti-ship missile technology assured that an invasion force would have to "away all boats" forty or more miles offshore. This, of course, was an order of magnitude greater distance than required during WW II or, sixty years ago next month, the last great amphibious operation in US history, the one at Inchon, Korea.

To Dr Gates the takeaway was self-evident. The distance, and the time required to transit it would be too great. In the future, large scale operations across a contested beach would be impossible at any acceptable loss rate.

Surely with his vast experience, Dr Gates knows better. He has both seen enough and, in all probability, studied enough to understand that there is no such critter as a stasis imposed by the unconquerable defense or the irresistible offense.

Being a contemporary of the Geek, the secretary must recall, for example, the confident expressions by experts of high rank and great experience of a belief that the helicopter was too slow, too low flying, too fragile to survive in a combat zone. He should remember the pronouncements to the effect that the Marine's doctrine of "vertical envelopment" would prove impossible at any acceptable loss rate.

The experts were wrong as battlefields from Vietnam to Afghanistan have shown. The great wheel of offense versus defense rolled on. Improvements in one drove improvements in the other. There is no reason to believe this dynamic will suddenly and abruptly change.

History is filled with other examples, very well known examples. The combination of artillery, machine guns, field fortifications, and barbed wire made ground offensives impossible. Sure, until the armored fighting vehicles were developed. The battleship was supreme. Sure, until the airplane and submarine proved otherwise.

Submarines were queens of the sea. You bet. Until effective technologies of detection and engagement were developed. The bomber would get through. Yes, until radar, controlled figher interception, and surface to air missiles arrived on the scene.

Technological lurches in and off themselves are not necessary and sufficient reasons to demand a review and reconfiguration of missions and mission postures. The only truly necessary and sufficient reason for this to occur is found in the nature of the wars most likely to be fought in the next few years, say the next couple of decades.

Way back when, well, at least before 9/11, a faculty member at the National War College challenged the Geek to make one of his (in)famous "fearless predictions." The Geek obliged, opining that the most probable type of war for the US over the next generation or two would be that of an interventionary nature. The kind of war now called "overseas contingency operations."

While the probability of a peer-to-peer conflict with, say, China could not be ruled zero, such was diminishingly small. Rather it was likely to highly likely that the US would find it necessary to involve itself in messy little, frustratingly inconclusive interventions ranging from the punitive to the humanitarian to the stability enhancing to the counterinsurgent. Nasty little wars of policy which would be critical to national and strategic interests but not in themselves existential or total.

To date the prediction has been borne out. Further, there is no reason to see the situation altering in any fundamental fashion for the next two decades. Not even an attack on Iran would result in a total war of national survival for the US. The probability of a peer-to-peer mid- to high-intensity war with China or Russia is no more probable today than it was fifteen years ago. Nor, absent some form of unilateral disarmament is such going to loom larger in the real world over the next two decades.

This global reality does demand a more effective configuration of American forces: Marines, Navy, Army and Air Force. The necessity and desirability of such a reconfiguration has gained greater salience from the experiences of the past ten years. Further stimulus comes from the only partially acknowledged fact that the advocates of violent political Islam have not lost their appetite for armed confrontation with the US and other civilized states nor their ability for horizontal escalation.

The Marine Corps can be employed as an example of the necessary reconfiguration of doctrine, force structure, and posture. It should be recognized that the Marines are quite unlikely to be engaging in amphibious forcible entries in the next few years. This assertion is based not on changes in anti-ship missile technology or the increasing availability of inexpensive, effective anti-ship missiles but rather on the nature of likely wars.

In this context it is necessary to remember that the Marine Corps has a wide, extensive, and highly successful experience with interventionary operations, particularly counterinsurgency. For most of the past one hundred years, the Marines have been more often employed in low intensity interventionary operations than in assaulting heavily defended beaches. To put it in perspective, the USMC spent less than three years seizing beaches during WW II and Korea while Marines fought for six years in South Vietnam and nearly that long in Iraq or Afghanistan.

In South Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan as in the earlier "Banana Wars" of the Twenties and Thirties, the Marine Corps demonstrated the value of its tightly disciplined, flexible, down and forward approach to leadership in counterinsurgency. In all these deployments the Marines demonstrated a very rapid learning curve, a high degree of innovation, and a genuine competence at working with indigenous forces. The Marines have often exasperated higher command with their independence ("hell, the Marines are fighting their own war out there,"), but none have questioned their effectiveness.

In other interventionary operations, the Marine Corps' combination of high discipline, unit coherence, and integrated air and ground capabilities provided the necessary combination of lethality and restraint to accomplish difficult missions. (In this context it is helpful to remember the Marine operation in Lebanon in 1957.)

Had a Marine force been tasked with the neutralization of Somalian warlords in 1993, there would have been no possibility of the mission destroying "Blackhawk down" debacle. The very nature of Marine force posture and doctrine would have prevented the mounting of such a poorly planned and inadequately supported operation as that undertaken by Special Forces personnel at that time. (All that is necessary to keep in mind is that the Marines have organic armor, rotary wing and fixed wing as well as the necessary integrated command, control, and communication capabilities.)

In short, the Marine Corps brings to the table all the features and capacities necessary for short, sharp, constrained lethality operations. For humanitarian relief operations when risk of armed opposition exists, (bare in mind that Pakistani Taliban has threatened attack on relief personnel during the current flood) or a punitive expedition (such as the invasion of Afghanistan should have been) or stability enhancement deployments such as Lebanon in 1957 (or, absent the critical mistakes of mission definition and rules of engagement, Lebanon in 1982), the Marine Corps should be the lead force.

True, leaning on the Corps would violate the totem of "jointness" which has ruled supreme for the past several decades. If Dr Gates is serious he should kick start a review on "joint and combined operations" with a goal of eliminating those which are not genuinely required by the nature of the operation. He knows, (it is flatly impossible that he doesn't) the "joint and combined" fetish is driven not by any real strategic, operational, or tactical requirements but rather by the budgetary process.

And, that, bucko, is a very, very poor way to plan and conduct military operations.

While the Deep Thinkers of the national security community are at it, they might consider the need for reconfiguring the American special and black operations capacities. As events of recent vintage in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and North or Northwest Africa have shown, there is an increasingly blurred line between the operational divisions of CIA and the blacker portions of the Special Operations Command (SOCOM). Complicating this is a corollary merging of the intelligence collection functions of CIA's HUMINT component and the equivalents in SOCOM.

Blurring, merging, overlapping between black or paramilitary operations and HUMINT collection is both dangerous and counterproductive. Almost as bad is the insensible, unplanned and reactive melding of the Agency's paramilitary or black operations capacities with any similar capacities in SOCOM. Clear lines of command, responsibility and tasking are necessary for effectiveness. So also is common doctrine, shared mindset and world view.

The separation with careful coordination between intelligence collection and operational execution is also utterly essential. As the record of WW II in Europe demonstrates convincingly, a carefully orchestrated and coordinated separation of intelligence and operations is utterly essential. Otherwise the spooks and the black ops types not only step on each others cloaks, but get stabbed with one another's daggers.

There are many other areas where our forces doctrines, structures, orientations and postures can be and should be re-evaluated and reconfigured. Dr Gates is definitely on the side of the angels when he urges such.

However, it is mission critical that any review, any reconfiguration, any structure, posture and doctrine changes be based not on changes in technologies, new turns on the wheel of offense and defense but on a realistic understanding of the nature of the wars we will be fighting in the years to come. To suggest otherwise is to assure an ultimate failure in the process.

The bitch of it all is the failure will not be evident until too many body bags come home in a war not yet fought. And, by then, it is way too late.

ADMIN NOTE: Comments are invited, welcomed and will be posted but due to spam comments the Geek has been forced to take defensive measures. He apologizes for any inconvenience or frustration.

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.

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.

The Latest From Our Allies In Islamabad

The US is embarking on large scale operations in southern Afghanistan. That is the mission of the newly deployed Marine forces. The radical notion is to take the war up close and personal to the al-Qaeda and Taliban jihadists in their core zone along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

It is an operational concept which should have been executed years ago. We did not have sufficient forces in country then. We do now. Now we must deny sanctuary to Taliban and its affiliates all through the border region if we are going to accomplish the minimum strategic goal of "not-losing."

We must destroy Taliban as a militarily potent force in the critical border region if we are going to deny the Islamist jihadists any belief that they have, will or even can defeat the US militarily. In short, a successful carrying of the war to Taliban in south Afghanistan is a necessary, even a sufficient prerequisite for achieving the Obama announced end state of removing Taliban and its ilk as a threat to the US and its western allies.

The new American capacity for offensive military action in southern Afghanistan has alarmed the Pakistani military. It has been reported that Ashfaq Kayani, the General Big of Islamabad's army is most perturbed by the prospect of US troops actually doing something useful near the border.

His reasons?

Humanitarian. The fire-breathing Pakistani warrior is gravely concerned that American operations might cause a flood of refugees across the border placing a burden for relief efforts which Islamabad could not shoulder given the current global economic situation.

Just in case the Americans don't buy that argument, General Kayani has a backup. US offensive actions might result in Taliban (whether that of the Afghan variety or the Pakistani twin is unclear) making further efforts to interdict the Khyber Pass supply route.

The first of these contentions is inherently bogus from the American perspective. As the Marine Corps Commandant James Conway correctly noted, no one can be certain where the jihadists might move under American pressure. It might be added that any numbers regarding civilian displacement or jihadist fugitives are softer than soft.

One caveat is needed. If General Kayani has better information, perhaps based on HUMINT, than does the US, he might be correct in his apprehensions of a refugee torrent washing across the almost non-existent border.

The odds are good that Kayani has superior intelligence concerning Taliban numbers and intentions, including that of purposely generating hordes of refugees. Given the long-standing relations between the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Taliban in Afghanistan, such an eventuality exceeds mere certainty by a West Texas mile or two.

Taliban in Pakistan has long been in the habit of using civilians as a shield for its Heroic Fighters For Islamic Purity as has been recently, publicly acknowledged by the new Interior Minister in Islamabad. The movers-and-shakers of Taliban are knowledgeable in the ways of the West. These men are well aware of the rapidity with which the ever-so-sensitive Western chattering class can weep, wail and cry over the fate of "innocent civilians" caught in the sights of weapons wielded by Americans or other Westerners.

Like their politically calculating religious compatriots in the Gaza Strip, the leaders of Taliban count upon the bodies of dead civilians to snatch victory from the clutches of military defeat. It makes strategic political sense to the intensely cynical men behind the black turban wearing trigger pullers of Taliban to force civilians to catch the (literal) flak and, with their blood, gain the victory which combat alone would deny the Islamist jihadists.

The Western elites have shown a remarkable ability and willingness to displace responsibility for the deaths of non-combatants from its legitimate residence on the doorstep of Hamas to the Israeli Defense Forces. There is no reason to assume that the dark minds of Taliban have failed to notice that unjustified Western opprobrium forced the IDF to halt their incursion into the Gaza Strip without first having destroyed the combat potential and structural integrity of Hamas.

Rather than face defeat and destruction at the hands of the US Marines, the Taliban will cheerfully shove the civilian population in the area of operations out of their homes and down the paths to Pakistan. No doubt Taliban will assure that civilians die. They will make sure that cameras are available to flash images of torn corpses and wailing survivors to the world.

General Kayani has telegraphed Taliban's most likely strategic and operational response to the forthcoming American offensive operations. This was not his intent. It is the result. The Americans have been (fore)warned.

The US has three options now.

The first, most obvious was conveyed by General Conway. It is blunt, a good Marine's view of reality. "But in any event, we've got to do what we've got to do in the south."

The second is to prepare for the refugee contingency. The US can offer requisite humanitarian assistance to Islamabad. The Americans can--and should--insist that the government and military forces of Pakistan be good to go in handling refugees. This includes having the capacity to effectively separate Taliban wolves from the civilian sheep. A further pro-active step would be re-emphasizing the rules of engagement which serve to limit collateral casualties.

The final option is to call off the planned offensive sweep. The Americans could simply say, "Golly-gosh, General Kayini, we never thought about that. You're right. Can't have all those poor civilians stumbling through the mountains, maybe even getting hurt. Sprained ankles and who knows what other catastrophes."

"Alright, Geek, maybe you're right on that fugitive from firepower thing, but what about the supply route? What if Taliban ups the ante by attacking there?"

Right, bucko, what if they do?

The Khyber Pass main supply route (MSR) is and always has been the most vulnerable component of the entire US/NATO/Other Concerned Nations effort in Afghanistan. The inherent vulnerability of the MSR has been worsened by the Pakistani military's less than resolute defense of it.

When assessing the liability of the MSR to interdiction, it is necessary to consider the capacity of Taliban (both varients, Afghan and Pakistani) to sever the artery. In the past this capacity has shown both expansion and contraction. It is legitimate to posit that Taliban will seek to expand its capabilities if the American offensive is conducted in such a way as to afford the black turbans the time and excess manpower necessary.

Unless one is willing to believe that American planners have their collective head inserted very far into an anatomically improbable location, it is most likely that the US has taken the MSR interdiction response into consideration. The tempo of combat operations will be such that it is diminishingly likely that Taliban will have the luxury of time, or, surplus manpower.

While General Kayini no doubt wishes otherwise, his warning about the Khyber Pass places a focus on the second factor which must be assessed when considering MSR vulnerability. It is necessary to evaluate the will and ability of the Pakistani military to defend the MSR, to prevent its disruption.

To date the defense efforts have been less than impressive. Even though the security services of Pakistan have had access to intelligence information from American assets, the ISI, constabulary and army have shown no particular inclination to take pro-active action, nor even to respond to an attack with notable effectiveness.

General Kayini has conducted an ancient bureaucratic and military maneuver, (generally dubbed CYA.) His dark and dismal warning of the MSR being severed and the flow of necessary supplies being choked severely is actually meant to excuse in advance the inevitable failure of the army, ISI and constabulary to either prevent or quickly neutralise threats to the MSR.

The Geek has a question for you, General Kayini. Which are you? A senior commander in the military of a dedicated and resolute ally in a joint effort against a serious enemy? A faltering member of a deliquescent regime? A sympathiser with Taliban?

You see, General, it's confusing. Your job title gives one answer. Your "warnings" give others.