The Strategic Staff Sergeant

From the NYT:

PANJWAI, Afghanistan — Displaced by the war, Abdul Samad finally moved his large family back home to this volatile district of southern Afghanistan last year. He feared the Taliban, but his new house was nestled near an American military base, where he considered himself safe.

But when Mr. Samad, 60, walked into his mud-walled dwelling here on Sunday morning and found 11 of his relatives sprawled in all directions, shot in the head, stabbed and burned, he learned the culprit was not a Taliban insurgent. The suspected gunman was a 38-year-old United States staff sergeant who had slipped out of the base to kill.

Read the article here.
In contrast, read USMC Gen. Charles C. Krulak's original 1999 article on the Strategic Corporal here.

Hearts and Minds

A report prepared for ISAF's RC-East claims the rising number of coalition forces being killed by Afghanistan National Army and Police partners is indicative of a deeper animosity growing between the allies' lower ranks.

“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” said the report. Official NATO pronouncements to the contrary “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest.”

Read the article here.

The Shifting Application of Airpower

From carpet bombing and cluster munitions to overwatches and shows of presence, the (re)development of COIN Ops in Afghanistan has brought combat aviation to heel:

The use of air power has changed markedly during the long Afghan conflict, reflecting the political costs and sensitivities of civilian casualties caused by errant or indiscriminate strikes and the increasing use of aerial drones, which can watch over potential targets for extended periods with no risk to pilots or more expensive aircraft.

Read the article here.

‘Three Cups of Tea’ Author Defends Book

The CBS news program "60 Minutes" investigated and questioned events portrayed in Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea:

While the publishing industry waited to see whether it faced the embarrassment of yet another partly fabricated memoir, Greg Mortenson, the co-author of the best-selling “Three Cups of Tea,” a book popular with the Pentagon for its inspirational lessons on Afghanistan and Pakistan, forcefully countered a CBS News report on Sunday that questioned the facts of his book and the management of his charitable organization.

An unofficial reponse:

“We continue to believe in the logic of what Greg is trying to accomplish in Afghanistan and Pakistan because we know the powerful effects that education can have on eroding the root causes of extremism,” said a military official, who asked not to be named under ground rules imposed by the Pentagon.

As Mara Naselli observes:

The debate between truth and fact in personal essay and memoir is an old one, and the test of authenticity has rarely been, “Did it really happen that way?” Many argue that memory is just too slippery to be held to that kind of standard, and that the discernment of fact itself isn’t obvious.

The question, then, is whether the US military should use such slippery accounts as a staple in COIN training.

Read the NYT article here.

Criticizing COIN

NYT reviewed Bing West's The Wrong War, which offers and account of the U.S. Military's COIN strategy from the soldiers' perspective:

“The Wrong War” amounts to a crushing and seemingly irrefutable critique of the American plan in Afghanistan. It should be read by anyone who wants to understand why the war there is so hard... [The] basic argument can be summed up like this: American soldiers and Marines are very good at counterinsurgency, and they are breaking their hearts, and losing their lives, doing it so hard. But the central premise of counterinsurgency doctrine holds that if the Americans sacrifice on behalf of the Afghan government, then the Afghan people will risk their lives for that same government in return. This isn’t happening. What we have created instead, West shows, is a vast culture of dependency: Americans are fighting and dying, while the Afghans by and large stand by and do nothing to help them. Afghanistan’s leaders, from the presidential palace in Kabul to the river valleys in the Pashtun heartland, are enriching themselves, often criminally, on America’s largesse. The Taliban, whatever else they do, fight hard and for very little reward. American soldiers, handcuffed by strict rules of engagement, have surrendered the initiative to their enemies. Most important, the Afghan people, though almost certainly opposed to a Taliban redux, are equally wary of both the Americans and their Afghan “leaders.” They will happily take the riches lavished on them by the Americans, but they will not risk their lives for either the Americans or their own government. The Afghans are waiting to see who prevails, but prevailing is impossible without their help.

Read the review here.

Another Runway General

Links to media articles tracking Gen McChrystal's interview & resignation:

Rolling Stone - The Runaway General
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/119236

NYT - McChrystal’s Fate in Limbo as He Prepares to Meet Obama
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/politics/24mcchrystal.html?hp

NYT - General Faces Unease Among His Own Troops, Too
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/world/asia/23troops.html?ref=politics

NYT - The Fury of a General, Released by Nature
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/23/world/23rollingstone.html?ref=politics

WSJ - Why McChrystal Has to Go
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704853404575322800914018876.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

RCP - Statement by General Stanley McChrystal
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2010/Statement%20by%20General%20Stanley%20McChrystal.pdf

Newsweek - Why Military Code Demands McChrystal's Resignation
http://www.newsweek.com/2010/06/22/why-military-code-demands-mcchrystal-s-resignation.html

WSJ - Decision to Dismiss McChrystal Came Swiftly
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324673218719434.html

CSM - The McChrystal Rolling Stone article: the story behind the story
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2010/0623/The-McChrystal-Rolling-Stone-article-the-story-behind-the-story

LAT - A rapid-fire chain of events led to Gen. McChrystal's downfall
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-mcchrystal-obama-20100624,0,558830.story

Miami Herald - Obama, officials stress no Afghan policy change post-McChrystal
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/24/1699251/obama-officials-stress-no-afghan.html#ixzz0rpRsMxRc

NYT - The Culture of Exposure
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/opinion/25brooks.html?hp