There is a distinct separation between most officers and their NCO’s and enlisted in the U.S. military. It is even more pronounced in the ANA. This means that the U.S. military tends to look on what I would view as outrageous disregard for the ANA enlisted with more of an air of bemusement than of disgust or fury.

If the ANA officer corps is not overly concerned with soldier care and training — the ANA will continue to suck in far too many ways.

FWIW from a Has Been.

Sounds like the 3 brave Marines were on point and a equally brave Navy Corpsman tried to help them. Its unlikely they would have survived anyway given the nature of the ambush and where they were forced to take cover in the village. The leaders did not appear to request air/artillery support for the first 20 minutes in one article I read. Still not sure why there was no fixed wing air or artillery support away from the village. Army Apaches and MEDEVAC showed up.

As for your ANA issues, it sounds like many Tajik officers and NCOs run the ANA and they have difficulty recruiting Pashtuns:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/17/opinion/17harrison.html?em

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C09%5C06%5Cstory_6-9-2009_pg3_4

You gotta admit that Tajiks that were part of the Northern Alliance were highly capable against the Soviets. Many of the attackers at Gajgal may have been foreign fighters.

Have read Michael Yon articles saying that ANA sent to the south are often there “on vacation” whatever that means. These linked articles say that few speak the Pashtun language and few want to go there. Saw the ANA on CNN AC 360 the last few nights. Obviously, they do have problems…but also wonder if they send the worst ANA troops to the south.

Still believe, as posted in the other Greg Gant article, that some form of Pashtunistan power– sharing is required. If the ANA is largely Tajik, then they will never succeed in Pashtun areas on a permanent basis after we leave. Then there is the problem of resupplying those ANA forces over dirt roads when we are gone. Lots of booms will make troops even less likely to volunteer to go there.

If we had the Afghans vote NOW on creation of a Pashtunistan…even if initially only within Afghan boundaries…then we could create a UN/NATO peacekeeping force securing strictly the Hwy 1 and other border areas between the old and new nation. Pashtunistan and Afghanistan troops would be restricted from that area except at logistics sites adjacent to Hwy 1 which would be supplied by contractor trucks.

Another unspoken issue that must be considered is Iran. If we have a temporary surge over the next few years, it will coincide with the timeframe that Israel may attack Iran. Given recent UN reports, calls for meetings, and Netanyahu’ “secret” trip to Russia, it should be clear that problem is accelerating.

Troops surged temporarily to Afghanistan would be a deterrent to Iran getting frisky near the Straits of Hormuz following an Israeli attack. If deterrence failed, our Afghan forces would be well-positioned to seize and hold lands adjacent to those Straits.

1) As I asked in another post on another site –
Somebody has been training the Taliban Afghans very well, apparently. They are by recent accounts as brave as any we’ve fought lately, but also smarter. They execute well planned attcks, do the right things, etc. “Our Afghans,” in contrast, seem to be less than superb warriors even after extensive training. I’m not talking about all the trappings of a modern professional Army. I’m talking about things that seem to me to be very basic for any warriors anywhere, for example:

– Not sleeping on guard
– Actually returning fire when contact is made
– Not getting stoned out of your mind.
– Taking basic care of equipment
– Being where you’re supposed to be when you’re supposed to be there.

These things seem to be basic requirements even for stone-age hunters to work together; and I would think even the Afghans are beyond that!

I think the Taliban actually do these things; so why are “our” Afghans so dumb?

2) The USMC also has a long history with Small Wars, including ‘Nam. We should all give credit where it is due and learn from each other.

3) To continue somewhat with the last point — and I don’t want to start any inter-service bashing here, because it is not useful — but the posts above confirm what has been true for a long time: The U.S. Army and USMC have different cultures and fighting styles (beyond doctrinal differences) based on their different missions and histories. Obviously, the never-ending battle to get them working together is not over yet — but don’t give it up!!

Well — ’nuff for now!

The Marines are somewhat newcomers in comparison to the Army. They have had problems there in the past believing that force solves everything, such as the MARSOC/AC-130 attacks in west Afghanistan near Herat against airfield contractors and the linked incident below that perhaps slant Solomon’s opinion against Army Generals:

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2008/02/marine_marsoc_080215/

While the Marines have a small special operations force formed in the past few years, General McChrystal has been doing the job since 1978, and the Army since Vietnam.

* General McChrystal commanded the 75th Ranger Regiment — a unit as elite, disciplined, and well-trained as any Marine unit.

* He was Chief of Staff of XVIII Airborne Corps and Coalition Joint Task Force 180 during OEF in Afghanistan.

* He commanded Joint Special Operations Command for 5 YEARS during which time both Sadaam Hussein and Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi were captured/killed by his units and the USAF. Frankly, we will never know a fraction of the things General McChrystal has accomplished in his career because so many of them are classified.

* In the past week, he visited the bombing site of two stolen fuel tankers and a hospital to visit the wounded (just as he went to the site of al-Zarqawi’s bombing to supervise) even though he was told it was very dangerous…and in fact two reporters were captured in the same vicinity.

That being said, I will agree that the events that occurred near Ganjgal were tragic. An investigation is ongoing. It’s easy to second-guess from 7,500 miles away. Seems as though the Air Force could have arrived faster than distant Army attack helicopters, but close proximity to the border may have risked cross-border flight.

The denial of artillery is troubling, if true, but obviously it could not be placed directly on the mountain village. Ultimately artillery white phosphorous smoke did allow withdrawal.

In the long run, the policies General McChrystal has instituted are essential to preventing civilian deaths that have become a major source of enemy aid and comfort. As I believe ex-Ranger Andrew Exum has put it, General McChrystal tried to kill his way out of these wars and saw that it didn’t work. A new strategy is in order, and it should be given a chance along with troop increases before running with tail tucked between legs.

Time to fire another General. The Soldiers and Marines deserve better leadership than they’re getting.

His commands are getting people killed. Where are his defenders? You’re quiet because everyone in the military knows this man is a joke.

Anthony Cordesman has a series of briefings about Afghanistan that are very recent. One of them was this briefing that indicates that the ANA may be more capable than implied here, with a large part of the force deemed able to operate independently (in contrast to the AN Police):

http://csis.org/files/publication/burke/090803_DevelopmentsInAfghanForces.pdf

If you note on, believe its page 17, there is an ANA pay scale that shows you can buy lotd of ANA troops for under $300 a month. That figure was mentioned in one of Cordesman’s multiple studies as being more than what 93% of the country makes.

Check out this link for valuable info about Afghanistan, under “The Afghan War: A Survey of “Metrics.” This is why some think tanks and guys like Dr. Cordesman are so valuable. The research and graphic materials are outstanding:

http://csis.org/publication/afghan-war

ps. the Mobile Training Team concept is a joke. If the people you’re training don’t turn on you then the operational security is so lax that you walk into the type of ambush that killed 4 brave men today. Primitive cultures understand simple concepts. ie. if you don’t do as instructed bad things happen.

A big part of anyone’s troubles in Afghanistan is that they are NOT a country as we expect. For instance in France — they have a somewhat understood common language and history. Same with Norway — even in the northern villages people speak Norwegian and identify themselves as Norwegians.

Not so with most of Afghanistan. They identify themselves with their village or with their local region. For example Iraq consists of a collection of people that were inside of some lines drawn by the Sikes-Picot agreement. Afghanistan mostly is a collection of peoples that are outside of other lines drawn on maps. They are a country partly since no one else wanted them.

Now we are told that we must bring them high speed internet?

We need to put some adult supervision in place and then let them work it out.

So we have a ethnic minority officer core (many of which don’t know Pashtun) leading Pashtuns to protect Pashtuns.

The reason guerilla warfare is so effective in Afganistan is because the terrain itself lends itself very well to that kind of operation, whilst it hinders more conventional forces.

If the Afghan army wants to be effective in defending the population from enemies foreign or domestic it needs to be a decentralised, networked force where individual elements are self-sufficient, self-controlling and self-synchronising. In fact, if done correctly the ANA could become a posterchild for Network-Centric Warfare done in a very practical, affordable and robust way.

Trying to enforce a centralised chain of command in Afghanistan is not only going to be very hard to pull off, it may also exarcebate problems like corruption and other questionable activities. These are the same issues are currently plagueing the centralised government.

Untill every Afghan has electrity, running water and a high-speed internet connection in their home, Afghanistan is going to remain a collection of isolated communities as opposed to one, unified country.