The Political Conundrum!

My Afghan blogging buddy, Vampire 6 wrote a really fascinating piece  at http://afghanistanshrugged.com/2009/02/16/the-durand-line.aspx

I posted a comment to this posting and after re-reading my comment I thought a pointer to his blog entry along with my comment would make for a good blog posting here.

My Comment below——

Not surprising that Old Blue gave you such accurate advice. He was more than 100% correct. Regardless of how many stories you heard, blogs you read, etc you went into Afghanistan blind, deaf, and dumb as to what you would truly experience.

Now you are going back sober, awakened and cognizant to the hell-hole and frustration that awaits you. Your body and psyche splits into two, part of you wants to embed your fingers into the door frame of the house refusing to go back, and part of you wants to run to the car, get on the plane and get back to you team in order to calm your nerves that with you there nothing bad will happen to them and to get the job done and over.

As my team used to say, after R&R leave everything is downhill from there. As you are only a month or two from the worse fighting season we have ever seen starting up it will truly be downhill in more than one way. Take Care brother, God Speed to you and your team. Keep up those mag changes and the miltec handy.

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A U.S. appeals court reversed a ruling Wednesday that would have transferred 17 Guantanamo Bay detainees, none of whom are labeled enemy combatants, to the United States. The ruling casts further uncertainty on the fate of the Turkic-speaking Muslims from western China.

Poland and the Czech Republic enraged Russia by backing a U.S. plan to put missile bases in their countries.

Iran has built an unmanned surveillance aircraft with a range of more than 600 miles - enough to reach Israel - a top defense official said in remarks published Wednesday.

Army investigators say the death of a 16-year-old girl at an Army base barracks in Washington state is drug-related.

It was only natural that the most renowned private security company develop its own rifle. Two factors stand behind this statement. Service and support to the United States in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, as well as other numerous hotspots, has given this organization a unique insight into what works in combat.

http://buffalopundit.wnymedia.net/blogs/archives/8090

I f#@$%ing hate these people. Who do they think they are? How is it that they are still walking this earth? I hope the Buffalo community stands up and keeps these people away. They need to be taught a lesson once and for all. Them doing this in the name of God is as unconvievable and sickly twisted as the extremists of any religion who say they kill in the name of God.

I think they should follow the path of Jim Jones’s church. I will gladly buy the grape kool-aid.

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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/02/17/report-game-changing-strategy-urgently-needed-afghanistan/

Really? Really? It took our government to pay tens of thousands of dollars to the Rand McNally think-tank to determine this. All they had to do was read Gen McCaffrey’s AAR on my blog or heck they could have asked me or any number of soldiers that I could have pointed them to in order to get the same analysis for free. Whomever was in charge of Afghanistan prior to GEN Petreaus taking over CENTCOM  shares the blame for what has been going on there.

I complained the whole time I was there that there were way too many State Department Beauracrats and Generals trying to be politicians in Kabul at Camp Eggers and at the Embassy in Kabul trying to make the Afghanistan government look like ours overnight. It took our country over 200 years to get to where we are today. Our country did not start off under President Washington with all the rights, laws and guidelines that we have today. They have been developed through amendments, executive orders, and laws passed by Congress.

SecDef Gates recently announced that he and the military leadership are looking at the obtainable goals for Afghanistan. They are shifting from the long-range goals of standing up a full functional military and government to a more achievable 5 year plan of at least standing up a basic security force.

The Rand Study said it best here, “Officials also must stop hoping they can build a central Afghan government strong enough to keep order across Afghanistan, the report said. It asserted that such a goal goes against the country’s history, and it recommended that tribes and local organizations must be fostered as well.”

I doubt that SecDef Gates reads my blogs, but in case he does or one of his people do I have a recommendation for them. Re-look at all the policies and regulations currently in place and evaluate their feasibility and practicality. For example, in 2006 an “Afghan” Government law was put in place that said no Afghan Army soldiers can go into a house and only Afghan Police are allowed to. Becuase our country does not allow this, some idiot told Karzai that he shouldn’t either. WRONG ANSWER.

They are a third world country and just like most other third world countries they do not need to worry about a seperate police force and army. They should all be one para-military like most third world counties have. It is not like the police are doing “police” duties. Just search my blog for any of the DOD Roundtables I have been part of, where I talked with leaders in the ANP training force and listen to when I ask them about what they are training on. It is not about detainee operations, or processing evidence, or even civil law. They are training them to basically survive and how to survive by removing the immedeate threat to the ANP by the enemy forces. The ANP is being attacked more vicously than the ANA these days and because of this lack of security for their own safety they are not able to act like police. This is just one stupid restriction that is placed on Afghan forces, and more importantly our US ETT/PMT forces that are embedded with the Afghans.

There is a difference betwween pessimistic and realistic. I consider myself a realist and I have been saying since I have stepped back on US soil that the direction has been heading the wrong way. Every day that our focus and priorities in Afghanistan continue heading that way, the worse it gets. Even CJCS Mullen has stated that Afghanistan strategy was heading down the wrong path, and you can read it here; http://blog.bouhammer.com/?p=2120

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A federal judge has ruled that the manslaughter case against five former Blackwater Worldwide security guards accused of spraying innocent Iraqis with machine-gun fire can continue.

British and Afghan troops have seized heroin and drug-making chemicals in southern Afghanistan with a street value of more than $71 million, the British defense secretary says.