Flit

March 15, 2010

One last thing

Sorry, but I can't quite leave this alone yet. One more thing needs to be said.

This is Sgt. Ian Gelig, aged 25, of the 782nd Brigade Support Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division. On March 1, he died in Afghanistan. A California native, he is survived by his parents and two sisters. He had been in Afghanistan since early last fall; he had previously done 15 months in Iraq. He had just made sergeant.

Gelig, a driver by trade, was in a convoy headed north on Highway 4, one of the busiest highways in Afghanistan, connecting the entire south of the country with the Pakistani border. Around 7 am local time, while he was crossing the bridge over the Tarnak River, halfway between Kandahar Air Field and Kandahar City, a suicide bomber somehow got his car close to the rolling convoy and detonated, killing Gelig.

Continue reading "One last thing"

March 14, 2010

This week's essential Afghan reading

Washpost:

The [police training] program, which will probably include sending thousands of officers abroad for training, is designed to rebuild a force of more than 90,000 Afghans who were dispatched to police stations with virtually no training and little supervision. After nearly nine years of war, senior U.S. and Afghan officials said they are essentially starting from scratch.

"We weren't doing it right," said Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who oversees the NATO training effort in Afghanistan. "The most important thing is to recruit and then train police," he said, emphasizing the steps necessary before any deployment. "It is still beyond my comprehension that we weren't doing that."

Also from the Washpost, a piece on frustration with one ISAF contingent's troublesome caveats. Not European troops... Marines.

Upon reflection...

My yammering on about Michael Yon's bridge stuff stops after this post, I promise. But the events have had the side-benefit of reorienting me a little, as well.

I don't challenge Yon's or anybody else's right to make a living as a journalist, and I do think soldiers need friends on the web or in the press. Sure, his reporting on this issue was inaccurate, but inaccuracy's a failing, not a sin. If you write something that's untrue, it only hurts you in the end, because people who know the truth will discount what you had to say, and no harm done. If Yon's Facebook posts and blog entry had only been inaccurate, I might have quibbled a little with the facts as I'm prone to do, but I wouldn't have gotten ANGRY.

No, what got me all mad was when Yon crossed the line into advocacy, however well-meaning: when rather than just make his observations and let us draw our own conclusions, he said things like "This Canadian general should be fired," "Canadians should not be commanding Americans in battle," etc. I would hope I'm objective enough still that that would have bothered me even if it hadn't been directed at Canadians.

The argument from authority was, last I looked, still a logical fallacy. And in condemning an entire brigade for laziness and a commander for incompetence, Yon was assuming a role of infallible judgmentalism, that no one had assigned to him.

The trouble is, that when I, after some time, identified what was really bugging me about Yon, I couldn't help but glance askance at some of the things I've written recently as well.

I try my best not to let it show in the writing, because I've always wanted my experiences and reasoned arguments to stand on their own objective merits, but I'm sure it's still obvious I remain privately passionate when it comes to the value of the Canadian Forces to our country and the cause of peace globally, and their still I-think-entirely-admirable actions in the context of the Afghan mission. (I'm also a little passionate about Afghan soldiers, now, too.) But where once I would just link to newspaper articles that I thought told their story well, or point out logical or factual errors in those that didn't, upon reflection I had to admit that in the last week or so I've let that passion drive my writing more than it should have, and in so doing I became a little more like Michael Yon than I'm comfortable with.

So, in order to keep the alternating Yon and non-Yon posts here from becoming too much of a pot-kettle experience, where I was saving everybody else the trouble by impeaching my own arguments on alternating days of the week, I've gone back to a few more recent posts where I now feel I crossed that line between explanation and advocacy and dialled those ones back. I apologize to anyone who might have enjoyed or linked to a now-missing paragraph, etc., but I can no longer support what I once wrote there. My hypocrisy, it seems, is not without its limits.

It's easier for me to do this, because I make no pretenses to being able to do as much damage as Yon. If you are reading this, you are one of approximately 100 people, according to Google Analytics, who do, lucky you. I have never promoted this site, or asked anyone to read this page; I have never sought nor accepted interviews with the press, only the occasional scholarly researcher. And I'm happy to remain the anti-Yon in that regard, as well.

Now, there are 2,300 individual posts on this website, accumulated over nearly 10 years. And I'm sure I could unwittingly in another fit of pique cross my own hard line on this subject again, some day in the future. So this just to say, if any of you Lucky Hundred ever think I've broken my own ground rules, above, and offered blind advocacy in place of the informed perspective I was aiming for, just email me. I promise I'll appreciate the corrective. Best, all.

March 12, 2010

"Zero: 79-Alpha, No-Drug Now, Over." "No-Drug Now, out."

One of the things that Michael Yon's latest dispatch shows is that he really has no clear idea about current military operational doctrine. Now, that wouldn't be a failing in 99% of humanity, but his stock in trade is supposedly explaining wars to regular people, so you think he'd be better at it.

Case in point:

Colonel Tunnell said that TF-K Area of Operations is Kandahar, but the specific area around the bridge had been assigned to GDA (RAF), and that when units such as those from 5/2 conducting route clearance, or 82nd Airborne, drive over the bridge, they enter what’s called an “Ops Box.”

In this case, the Ops Box is a transit zone over the bridge. Transiting units radio up to RC-South “CJOC” saying they are entering the Ops Box, and call when they leave.

Yon accompanies this with a Google Earth image of the bridge with a 1km box around it, handily labelled "Ops Box."

Is it enough for me to say that this quote will show to any soldier reading it that Yon has no idea what the phrase "ops box" -- about the most important phrase there is in understanding how NATO and hence ISAF operations come together -- really means? Can I just tell you it's not a little tiny box around a bridge which you "call when you enter and leave?"

No? Okay. Without getting into extensive detail, an ops box is an area with specific rules of engagement, and where certain operational activities (patrols, engagements, shuras, convoys, you name it) are essentially "pre-approved": if you can confirm you're in the ops box, and that kind of operation has been permitted for that ops box, you don't need to reconfirm your authority to operate. It's a hugely important control measure: a geographic and time-dependent "hard left and right of arc" that precisely circumscribes any ISAF unit's currently approved freedom of action. It's not a line that you draw lightly, or without good reason, and is always extensively and thoroughly planned.

Ops boxes can vary widely in size, nature, and intent, but I'll guarantee you there isn't a little tiny one like Yon draws around the Tarnak River bridge. It's related to, but significantly different from, the related terms Area of Operations (AO: the area where your soldiers are likely to be found) and Area of Operational Responsibility (AOR: the area where you are on the hook if something bad happens.)

I suspect what Col Tunnell meant was that that section of Highway 4 between KAF and the city was OUTSIDE his formation's current ops box, which meant all traffic-control and positional awareness for his troops in transit was being performed by another KAF-based headquarters (Aside: Yon says the CJOC (Div HQ)? Really? Every 3-truck convoy is calling into a Div HQ, one responsible for all southern Afghanistan, as they drive down the highway? Hey, I'm not there, but I suspect he missed the point that was being explained to him there, too.), and American units heading up to Tunnell's brigade's area of operations had to make sure that particular HQ knew when they were passing through it and be on the right radio frequency* during their time on that stretch of road. But that has nothing to do with the bridge. Yon was just throwing terms around he didn't clearly understand in an effort to look smart. Didn't work.

From KAF into Kandahar City is a fast ride: an example of the radio communications any passing unit would likely emit as they passed over the bridge would be the voice procedure sample I used to title this post: just an indication that they'd passed a specific midway point, which happens to be near the bridge. The whole trip could take no more than 20 minutes between when you entered the city and when you entered KAF itself. (In my time, "Arches" and "MiG" respectively.)

So even though a full colonel and brigade commander "got out the markers" and took a full evening (which I'm sure he could have been using to fight the insurgency instead) to explain it to him, Yon still couldn't grasp the colonel's point. That's why I'm also a little skeptical when he says it was Col. Tunnell who blamed Canadian BGen Menard for his soldier's death: probably another nuance Yon missed there, as well, and normally full Colonels in any army are too much the diplomats to accuse another country's general officer of negligence in front of a reporter, at least in my experience.

Yon is not a war correspondent, possessed of deep writing or comprehension skills, like a Sheehan or a Halberstam: he doesn't have the chops. He's a jingo, a battlefield tourist, like the young Churchill at Omdurman (and that's a flattering comparison indeed). And like Churchill, his antics are tolerated because they bump up support for the U.S. military at home. But he's nothing more than that.

*As a complete aside, any soldier who drove that road will tell you, whoever answered the radio at the Kandahar PRT at night during Roto 6 (late 2008 to early 2009) had a lovely voice. No idea who she was, but she had me (and everyone else) at "Zero."

March 11, 2010

The Yon "apology," in full

In apology to BG Menard, I should not have demanded that he be fired so early in the process, despite that (sic) my assertion that he was responsible has proven true. I should never have mentioned hockey, as that created room for a diversion from the central importance. (sic) Brigadier General Menard clearly was not the only responsible party for this strategic bridge that his soldiers depend upon. To single out BG Menard was a mistake, despite that (sic) he was ultimately responsible for the ANP...

Barely grammatical, I know, but I promised I'd print it when it came. Yon's argument now is that because the ANP guarding the bridge were mentored by American MPs, who are in turn, currently reporting to the Canadian task force commander, that makes the Canadians responsible for any attacks on that bridge. Pretty tenuous, but let's go with it. Someone has to take responsibility for the ANP at some point, after all.

But then, Yon also says earlier in the same piece, pretty much completely contradicting his own apology: "This controversy never would have occurred if Brigadier General Daniel Menard had secured the bridge several miles outside the gate from his office. He probably heard the explosion." Read that apology above carefully again: he's still saying Menard should be fired ("should not have said it so early in the process" is hardly an exoneration of the BGen), just that Yon shouldn't have said so so soon.

Note further that the RC (South) deputy commander's Gen Hodges' statement to Yon that "Henceforth, Strykers [the US 5/2 Brigade Combat Team] will 'own' the bridge" is also directly contradicted by Yon's endnote that "Task Force Kandahar, under BG Daniel Menard, will henceforth be tasked with the security for Tarnak River Bridge, and that Task Force Stryker and the RAF are not responsible for the bridge." Note how Yon doesn't make any comment on a U.S. general officer apparently providing him inaccurate info and thus further muddying the responsibility issue. That's okay, apparently, because Hodges was "courageous" for accepting personal responsibility.

(Look, any soldier will tell you, he's the deputy commander of a multinational div dealing with an incident that occurred right on a boundary line between his two brigades... of course it's a div HQ responsibility to sort those things out.)

Nor does Yon ever retroactively criticize his initial source, U.S. Col Tunnell (the commander of 5/2 BCT) which to be clear is a second brigade-level formation alongside the Canadian-led brigade within RC (South), for initially telling him unguardedly and without qualification that it was that other RC (South) brigade, those Canadians (who Yon can't resist reiterating here "increasingly shy from combat") that were responsible for this fatal incident, not any of Col Tunnell's own men.

To recap, before having any of the facts, other than the somewhat wild statement of a U.S. brigade commander who may have just lost a soldier to a bomb, Yon accused a Canadian brigade commander and his "combat-shy" soldiers of gross incompetence in the strongest possible terms. Those two commanders' American divisional-level superior then said no, he alone should take full responsibility, presumably for failing to deconflict between them, but then he also provided Yon confusing or inaccurate information about which of his two brigades would be responsible in future, indicating he still hadn't made any kind of a thorough appreciation of the situation. Yon considered this "courageous" conduct on that commander's part. And Yon is apologizing now only because of objections to his mention of the hockey game, and his call for someone's firing before he had any facts to support it. But he still feels the Canadian commander "was responsible," was "not the only responsible party," and was "ultimately responsible," all in the same paragraph. Glad he cleared that up.

So in short, after kicking up an unholy ruckus in a war zone, Yon... still hasn't quite figured out who's to blame here or why, but he knows it's not going to be an American, even if it's an American who's claimed full responsibility. Check.

Continue reading "The Yon "apology," in full"

I ____ the spiders on the wall

Reading about detainees all the time can be a bit of a downer. So... Levity break! I confess I laughed at this.

March 10, 2010

God help me these people are morons

I know no one writing or commenting publicly on the Afghan detainee issue these days reads this page, but they all seem so determined to crank up the stupid on this that I feel compelled to do what little I can to offset it.

Case in point today: the Star's Thomas Walkom.

Continue reading "God help me these people are morons"

March 09, 2010

Not far to render

Canadian Press:

In some cases the spy agency would recommend which prisoners should be transferred to the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service, which has a dismal human rights record.

"I'm speaking about rendition, yes," [NDP leader Jack] Layton said outside the Commons.

I'm not quite sure how one renders someone TO their country of residence, but never mind that.

Continue reading "Not far to render"

March 08, 2010

In case you were wondering...

Michael Yon still hasn't actually made that apology to Canadians he said he was going to make for his entirely false "you were all watching hockey instead of guarding the camp" allegations last week. Presumably it's because he's too busy beating up on... the Spanish. Sigh. Really, the Taliban couldn't get more value from this guy these days in terms of helping break up the Afghan coalition if they WERE paying him. Hey, maybe the Spanish deserved it (although the Canadian hockey experience should be at least cautionary) but it should be clear now that left unchecked it appears he's just going to continue to bounce around the AO sharing confidential U.S. soldiers' gripes with the world until nobody's talking to anybody else, or it's an all-U.S. mission. Which would suit his fanbase just fine, I suspect. Not a lot of liberal internationalists in those comments sections.

Today's essential marksmanship reading

Tip to Herschel for finding this, which all rifle-toting Canadian personnel should probably read. The points about optimal M16 weapon lubrication, magazine testing, and 50-metre zeroing's superiority over 25m apply to our weapon as well, and are worth hoisting in.

Miscellaneous updates

If it isn't obvious by now, the Pakistani crackdown on Taliban members seems to only extend to those members they catch outside Quetta and Baluchistan. Now, since the number of detained is too large by this point for defections or happenstance to account for it, you have to assume some deliberate intent on the Pak government's part, which leads to only one of two explanations: either Pakistan is signalling to the Afghan insurgents to stop any suggestion of raising hell in the rest of their country and stay where they are permitted to (ie, Quetta), or it's removing a targetted group of people that either it or another Taliban faction views as no longer useful, as this piece suggests. (Or both.)

Also, in the Globe today, a letter-writer gives Canada the credit for introducing Afghan soldiers to volleyball. Um, no. I don't know where their unholy passion for the game came from, but it certainly long predates our stay.

March 07, 2010

Today's essential Afghan reading

I agree with the Torch. This is a great piece of writing. And this is an awesome quote:

Capt. O'Neill says he doesn't spend too much time worrying about endgames. “It is what it is. Taliban have been around here for, you know, decades, you know what I mean? They're not going anywhere. If we pulled out of Afghanistan today, it'd probably take a couple days before the Taliban took this place back over again,” he says. “That's just the reality of it.”

Bingo! Also this:

“For me, I have a hard time understanding. It's their [the ANA's] country. If they want it to get better, then you'd think they'd want to be out all the time doing whatever they can.”

As the article mentions, the ANA sergeant has been in the ANA for seven years, and has certainly spent at least the last 4 of them in Kandahar Province, and will probably spend another 4 there. Capt. O'Neill has a few months left out of his six months in situ. You just need to factor that in when putting the sergeant's priority of volleyball over patrolling into perspective. So long as the Canadians are here, let them do the risky stuff, he's likely thinking. O'Neill's assumption is that Afghan soldiers should be hoping for a better future for themselves out of this. My experience was that they don't, and so behaved accordingly. Hope doesn't come in a seacan.

On the upside, what the Canadian platoon is doing here is exactly what every counterinsurgent theorist has always said we should be doing given this kind of situation. Finally.

UPDATE: One terminology quibble: the article says the army calls the current Canadian embrace of "pop-centric" COIN the "Key Village Approach." This is a mangling of the actual term BGen Vance's planners invented, the "Key Villages on the Approaches strategy" (ie, the approaches to Kandahar City).

Wrong-tree barking watch

This is an interesting story. Not sure why they're going with the CSIS involvement angle, though. The allegations about commanders putting orderly transfer to the Afghans ahead of intelligence-gathering would be more worth pursuing, I would have thought. Shows what I know.

Continue reading "Wrong-tree barking watch"

An XKCD reverie

I quite enjoy the webcomic XKCD. This one reminded me of one moment in my life I've often gone back to in my mind.

So I'm standing on parade at the end of a long exercise, and they're giving out the awards. It hadn't been a good ex by any measure, and I was in a less-than-my-usually happy mood at that moment. And as the speeches wore on, I reflected on how amazing military discipline and other forms of social control are, for I had the ability, standing where it was, to in at least 47 ways I dedicatedly catalogued in my head, completely disrupt the proceedings I was detesting (and as the comic said, entirely change my life in the process). And every soldier in serried ranks around me had the same power, and was choosing not to use it, either. That's remarkable if you think about it. Obedience to what is socially acceptable, even in a regimented subsociety like the military, is and always will be still at least something of a choice, at least somewhat freely entered into: out of fear for the consequences, perhaps, but still a choice that one can revoke at any time. And yet we never do.

So what did I do in the end, to register my unhappiness? Nothing of course. I was on parade.

March 05, 2010

Yet another update

As an update to this story, AP reports that Abdul Qayum Zakir is not actually in Pakistani custody.