Email is a wonderful medium for communication, but there are drawbacks, one of which is the deluge of spam that hits our inboxes. We\u2019ve all had weird messages couched something like<\/p>\n
\nForgive my indignation if this message comes to you as a surprise and if it might offend you without your prior consent and writing through this channel. I am Moses Arnett, Chairman, Contract Awarding committee . . .<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
They\u2019re stupid and annoying, but sometimes they\u2019re amusing, if you can be bothered opening them. After all, who would believe a missive that begins \u201cforgive my indignation\u201d? \u2013 although I have to admit the phrase does have a certain quirky humor. But when we consider more serious things, like the future of Afghanistan and Washington\u2019s commitment to that dismal prospect, \u00a0it isn\u2019t at all funny to listen to some of those who explain US policy to the world. Sometimes it\u2019s like opening a spam-mail, because many mouthpieces of the Pentagon and the State Department are no more effective in their attempts at communication than the preposterously illiterate spam-dodos.<\/p>\n
Consider, for example, the matter of disagreement concerning the ability or otherwise of the Afghan army to operate independently. There are many authorities who assert that it cannot do so, and the meaning of the word \u2018independent\u2019 has come under well-deserved scrutiny.<\/p>\n
There seems to be no definition in any US military dictionary of the word \u201cindependent\u201d ; not even in the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms<\/i>. But although it doesn\u2019t appear in official volumes, the word is explained in ordinary dictionaries as meaning \u00a0\u201cfree from control in action . . . \u00a0autonomous . . . \u00a0capable of acting for oneself or on one\u2019s own.\u201d \u00a0That\u2019s clear enough ; \u00a0but over the past year the Pentagon has modified the meaning of \u2018independent\u2019 so far as operations by the Afghan army are concerned. \u00a0\u00a0It is evident to almost everyone that the Afghan army is incapable of undertaking operations without assistance from foreign forces, but in order to clarify matters the Pentagon\u2019s spokesman said<\/p>\n
\nLet me talk about \u2018independently\u2019 a little bit . . . \u00a0You heard me earlier say, Afghan \u2013 the Afghans are in the lead, and carry out independently many of the operations. So, when \u2013 and that \u2013 and that measurement that we\u2019re talking about, being operated independently, that means they have every \u2013 that they have not just the \u2013 that their soldiers are capable, and that their leaders are capable, but they have the equipment, including the enablers, including the intelligence-collection ability, including the access to their own air force \u2013 air capability . . . \u00a0I think in terms of the fighting capability of the Afghan forces, the fact that they go out and carry out \u2013 carry out \u2013 independent operations at many levels, with some coalition support \u2013 sometimes that\u2019s actual advisers with them, sometimes that\u2019s fighting units with them, sometimes that\u2019s intelligence, sometimes that\u2019s air support either rotary wing or fixed wing air support \u2013 but, that\u2019s the actual fighting, the actual operations on the ground, the actual patrolling is being done.<\/p>\n
So, I wouldn\u2019t \u2013 very careful to not confuse the term that we use, \u201cindependent operations.\u201d \u201cIndependent operations\u201d means that they\u2019re independent sort of from bottom through all the range of capabilities when you have a military. But it doesn\u2019t mean that they don\u2019t operate independently.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Do you understand what this person said? \u00a0\u00a0Did he explain how \u201cindependent\u201d the Afghan army is? What on earth did he mean?<\/p>\n
The Afghan war is a shambles, and the least the world deserves is to be told in frank and lucid terms exactly what is happening and what is to be done in the future. But there\u2019s no hope of that, because the Washington briefings are supported in the field by equally stupid purveyors of fatuous gobbledygook.<\/p>\n
Take Major General Jake Polumbo, the Director of the International Security Assistance Force Air Component Coordination Element, and Commander 9th Air and Space Expeditionary Task Force, Afghanistan. You might imagine that anyone who could reel off that lengthy job description without looking at his notes would be a person with verbal talent. Alas, \u00a0No.\u00a0 Because when the general was asked by a reporter \u00a0\u201cwhat other types of airmen do you see in Afghanistan post-2014?\u201d he replied<\/p>\n
\nThe types of airmen that we\u2019ll have besides the advise and assist airmen will be primarily airlift, people that assist in regards to any of the drawdown that might not yet be done and assisting with the aerial ports of demarcation for our retrograde ops, and then some manned ISR will be a small footprint, but, again, enough that it\u2019ll be a recognizable percentage of the footprint into \u201915.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
This is garbage-speak; and his replies in the rest of the interview are equally fatuous and incoherent. But no doubt he will be promoted, because he speaks with the tongue and style of his leader, the pompous General Joseph Dunford, who commands everything in Afghanistan. \u00a0Last week at a Nato meeting in Brussels he enthralled his audience by stating that<\/p>\n
\nAnd \u2013 and I would just offer to you, there\u2019s a number of variables that you should track over the next 18 months \u2013 certainly the performance of the Afghans this summer, the results of the elections in 2014, any political processes that may \u2013 that may bring the Taliban into a political process will have an effect on that, which obviously affects the \u2013 the strength of the insurgency.\u00a0So I think it\u2019s impossible today, except with a linear progression, to project out to 2015 what the security environment is going to be. So I think all those discussions about what\u2019s going to take place in 2015 right now, I think you need to bear down and \u2013 and take a hard look at the assumptions that people are making when they \u2013 when they have that discussion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
It might not be a bad idea to take a hard look at Joseph Dunford himself, because he considers high casualties to be a measure of success. That\u2019s high Afghan Army casualties, of course, not dead Afghan militants.<\/p>\n
This all-powerful US general was asked \u201cWe\u2019ve heard that the Afghan security forces are facing very heavy losses. Could it be useful to get a sense of just how many?\u201d And he replied \u00a0\u201cYeah, they are \u2013 they are taking heavy losses. In fact, last week, we had a memorial service, and they \u2013 they lost 104 in one week. And that\u2019s been an issue,\u201d and changed the subject. \u00a0But when asked again about Afghan army deaths he said \u201cit\u2019s probably, you know, 70 one week. It was 44, 34, and then the last two weeks have been over 100.\u201d\u00a0 So that is over 350 dead in five weeks. Imagine the furious outcry there would be if the US military suffered a dead body count even approaching this number. But of course it\u2019s only Afghan soldiers who are dying, not Americans, and, according to General Dunford, their deaths show that \u00a0\u201cin terms of on the ground, you know, I think their performance actually exceeds where we thought they\u2019d be a couple of months ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is beyond belief that any military commander \u2013 any military person of any rank, never mind the senior man in Afghanistan \u2013 could possibly claim that the performance of an army could be regarded as improving when it suffers a staggering increase in the number of its soldiers killed in combat.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s put it in perspective : 310 members of the US armed forces in Afghanistan were killed in the whole of 2012. Now we have the Afghan army taking 350 killed in the last five weeks and the US commander declares that \u201cAnd I would tell you that based on their performance over the last couple months, I feel pretty good about that. The \u2013 the challenges they\u2019ve had against the Taliban, they\u2019ve absolutely confronted those. And \u2013 and not had an issue, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n
No; they haven\u2019t had \u201can issue\u201d other than 350 grieving families, and appalling effects on the morale of the Afghan army \u2013 and sense on the part of the militants that they are on a wave of success, described by General Dunford as \u00a0\u201cin terms of how they\u2019re doing, the Taliban came out and they\u2019re doing exactly what they said they would do, high-profile attacks, attempting insider attacks against the Afghans, and then fear, murder and intimidation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Good prediction, General. But when the senior US commander in Afghanistan says of his enemy that \u00a0\u201cthey\u2019re doing exactly what they said they would do\u201d this is a bizarre admission of utter failure. It\u2019s his job to STOP an enemy doing what it says it will do.<\/p>\n
In terms of explaining what\u2019s happening in Afghanistan, Dunford and the rest of his incompetent followers make as much sense as the email spammers who \u201crespectfully request\u201d our bank account details. They want our attention, but all they get is well-deserved derision. \u00a0And Afghanistan goes further down the drain.<\/p>\n
Brian Cloughley\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0website is\u00a0www.beecluff.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n