Afghanistan Is Not Lost

True ….. the Afghans know exactly where they are.

I know; that is facetious.

Actually, my intent is to direct attention to that ongoing, long-term operation against the Taliban and their al-Qaeda partners in crime (9/11 for those who might need their memory refreshed).

My cause is greatly bolstered by the efforts of journalist and author Bing West through a magnificent article titled “With the Warriors” that is featured in the March 7, 2011 edition of National Review and with his first book on the war in Afghanistan, titled “The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan” (Random House, 336 pp., $28).

Mr. West has been accurately described as “no more intrepid war correspondent today” and bringing “a unique set of qualifications to the table by reviewer MacKubin Thomas Owens.  Certainly, as an infantry veteran of Vietnam who participated in such Marine counterinsurgency programs as the Combined Action Program he has a strong affinity and admiration for the “grunts” whose life he shared.  Also, his positions as a former assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan administration and a professor at the Naval War College during the late 1970′s provide him with a breadth of understanding of both policy and strategy at the national level.  This impressive resume gives him an aura of authenticity equaled only by Lt. Col. Oliver North when it comes to reporting the actions and effect of the troops on the ground.

Both of these warriors/reporters offer a considerably different picture of what is going on in Afghanistan (and Iraq) than one would deduct from the reports circulated by the mass media – hardly any surprise there.

Mr. West is unrestrained in his praise for the troops, but after seven visits to Afghanistan he delivers a message that is on the down side of optimistic.  He openly states that the U.S. cannot afford to lose this war, but will not be able to win the fight the way it is currently being fought.  He identifies a problem resulting from a combination of two factors; (1) U.S. current policy is grounded in the belief that it can “midwife the creation of a democratic state in Afghanistan” through the establishment of a strong democratic state,  headed by Hamid Karzai and designed to control 31 million uneducated and fractious tribesmen – and (2) a faulty strategy.

This strategy, embraced by our military leaders, derides the notion that insurgencies can be won by killing the enemy, but instead deliberately hamstrings our soldiers with the requirement that they become “nation builders” as well as war fighters, thereby turning our military forces into a huge and unwieldy Peace Corps conducting innumerable tea-drinking meetings with village elders and distributing billions of dollars for nation-building projects.

This approach may have worked in Iraq, West says, but “an insurgency … depends on local conditions, not upon pronouncements from on high”.  Current U.S. policy, a modernized version of the “COIN” (counterinsurgency) doctrine, was implemented initially in the Philippines (1940′s) and then further developed in Malaya and Algeria (1950′s) and Vietnam in the 1960′s.  The final rendition, emerging from “lessons learned” in Southeast Asia, stressed services and protection of the population while downgrading the importance of killing or capturing the enemy.  This “new COIN” was touted as the deciding factor in Iraq when the Sunni sheiks were persuaded to reject al-Qaeda and side with “the strongest tribe”, the Americans, against the “aliens” who were in their midst.

West points out that in Afghanistan the Taliban are members of the country’s largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns, and for the Americans and the government in Kabul to tell them that “we are here to protect you from the Taliban” is akin to “the British telling Catholics in Ulster that they were there to protect them from the IRA”.  Thus the time-honored techniques of the venerable COIN concept practiced for decades – the “two-way social contract” based on the belief that protecting the population and giving them money for economic development will convince them to turn against the insurgents – has not been successful in winning the allegiance of the Afghan tribes.

Admittedly, there are no simple solutions to the Afghan situation, despite the heroic efforts of the grunts and special forces troopers who strive to implement dogma-induced contradictory goals.  West still puts his faith in the Combined Action Program in which he participated that combined Marine rifle squads with Vietnamese “popular forces” militias, whose operational purpose was to destroy and deny sanctuary to the Viet Cong.  He points to the recent success of a 400-man Afghan battalion advised by a U.S. special forces team and augmented with a Marine Corps rifle platoon, an engineer detachment, and fire support coordinators with mortar, artillery, and air strikes, whose purpose is to take the fight to the enemy

Bing West is a brave, determined and very capable journalist and strategist and if you really want to know what needs to be done to win in Afghanistan read what he has to say.

To All Who Have Earned The Title, “Veteran”

On this Veteran’s Day, I offer a heartfelt “Thank You!” to all of our military personnel, past and present, for their service and sacrifices.  And an equally fervent thank you to their families, who also exhibit great courage and dedication while they support the men and women who labor to keep America safe.

I recently read an article by William R. Polk featured in the November issue of The American Spectator, titled “August in Kabul”.  Mr. Polk is “a former member of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Council, where he was responsible for the Middle East.  He is also the author of A History of Insurgency, Terrorism and Guerrilla War, from the American Revolution to Iraq and Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic.

The author wastes no time in informing the reader of his impeccable credentials, boasting that his encyclopedic knowledge of Afghanistan dates from 1962 when he first arrived in that country to gain background material that would result in “the first American national policy paper on the country”.  He reports that he “fell in love with Afghanistan from the first.  To me it is the Wild East”.

It therefore comes as no surprise when Mr. Polk describes his initial impression during an August, 2010 visit to Kabul by stating: “Hope is gone, fear is everywhere, and the Khyber (Pass) is all but impassable.”  He goes on to lament the presence of “50,000 or so ‘security’ forces who roam Kabul (and) constitute a new virtual nation …. as they come from everywhere”.

As the article progresses, Mr. Polk continues to describe in detail the deterioration of Afghanistan resulting from the frenetic deployment of seemingly inexhaustible “security measures” to protect the multitude of representatives of the American bureaucracy and the accompanying corruption associated with the billions of dollars being lavished upon a 9th century ruling structure.

Our intrepid reporter disdains the security measures recommended by the American embassy, instead relying upon his vast knowledge of the Afghan culture as well as his experience in “other high-danger areas” such as Algiers in 1962 following the “pullout” of the French.  Mr. Polk goes on to reprint in detail his interviews with Dr. Sima Samar (head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission), Martin Kobler (the deputy special representative of the UN secretary-general and former German ambassador to Iraq), USAID mission director Earl W. Gast, Dexter Filkins of the New York Times, Russian ambassador Andrey Avetisyan and Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef (“one of the most important men in the pre-2001 Taliban establishment”).

All of these dignitaries are reported as united in their evaluations that American efforts in Afghanistan are ill-timed, ill-informed, disruptive and doomed to failure.

Such high-profile interviews (along with a few obligatory conversations with drivers, interpreters and other average Afghans) apparently did nothing assuage Mr. Polk’s initial impressions that Afghanistan is a lost cause because, as usual, Americans will fail because of our inability to appreciate the intricacies of a foreign culture and our insistence on bulldozing a beachhead for expansion of our particular culture.

I found it interesting that despite his derision of the government types failing to leave the pampered safety of fortress Kabul, he himself apparently made little effort to obtain information other than what was available from various and sundry governmental and NGO sources.

And I could not help contrast Mr. Polk’s gloomy prognostications with the reports made by Oliver North, Lt. Col. (Ret.) USMC, that are the result of his many visits with American military units serving in Afghanistan.  Col. North is the “real deal”, spending weeks at a time with the troops (despite him being in his late sixties) and accompanying them on missions varying from combat patrols to advisory groups assisting with everything from medical care to building irrigation facilities to expand a village’s farmlands.

Ollie North spares no praise as he tells the stories of our men and women and their devotion to duty in this far-off and difficult land.  He is also fervent in his belief that our American forces have made and are making a real and positive change in the lives of many Afghans.  As a long-ago participant in MEDCAP (indigenous medical and dental care and support) operations in Vietnam, I can certainly place great credibility in his beliefs.

Contrary points of view, from two very different perspectives.  And well worth contrasting on this Veteran’s Day.

A Time For Remembering

Memorial Day was originally construed as “Decoration Day” and instituted on May 30, 1868 in order to honor the nation’s Civil War Dead.  Over the years, it has expanded to also signify a time of remembrance for departed family and friends and, for some, a time to honor veterans and active duty military.

My Dad is buried at the Veteran’s Cemetary located on the outskirts of Augusta, Maine.  He returned from Normandy wounded in both body and spirit, but still managed to support a wife and four children during the lean times after WWII and through the 1970′s until the kids were old enough to fend for themselves.  He finally took the last step at age 97 after a very full life.

My other cemetary stops include the resting place of his brother, who served with the Navy in the cauldron of the South Pacific during WWII and spent the remainder of his working career helping to build Navy vessels at Bath Iron Works, in the town of Bath, Maine.  I had two cousins who served during the Vietnam War era, completing enlistments in the Army and Navy, respectively.  Grandparents, aunts, uncles, all represented in locations in Maine and New Hampshire.  It is a fairly comprehensive list – my family members did not tend to live outside of New England.  Nor were they much for traveling except when called away by military service.

I am always struck by the number of flags present in the cemetaries.  So many men and women who served their country, some giving their lives during that commitment ……..

The local American Legion Posts, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and other such organizations dedicate themselves to providing these visual reminders of those who tried in some way to repay the priceless opportunity that their country gave them.

I have no patience for those who refer to America’s flag as “just a piece of cloth” or show disrespect to the symbol of our nation.  They are, of course, entitled to their opinion and the freedom to express themselves.  But, for the most part, they seem to be folks who have done nothing to uphold or protect the freedoms that they are so quick to depend upon.

But next Monday is an opportunity for remembering and reflecting.  Each of us will observe it (or not) after our own fashion.  President Obama has chosen to attend ceremonies at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetary near Chicago, leaving Vice President Biden to attend the ceremonies at Arlington.

Personally, I am not much inclined to ceremonies and parades, having attended so many over the years and no longer having growing boys at home whom I wanted to understand the importance of the day.

Memorial Day and the week leading up to it will always be for me a time of introspection tinged with sadness.  Thus are we at times affected by the events of our lives and by the people who lived them with us.  Perhaps there will come a day when I can summon sufficient resolve to visit the Vietnam Wall Memorial and exorcise some of the feelings that I have carried hidden for so long.

But for now, I have a series of small trips to complete and homage to pay.  A very small price for all of the memories involved.

Now And Then

One of the many theories regarding time travel is that the progression of time is similar to the coils of a spring, a continuing spiral which, if compressed, connects the now to the past.  This is hardly a satisfactory concept for travel into the future, but indeed our present and past appear inextricably linked at times and recently my past surfaced from a totally unexpected source.

I received a phone call from a pleasant lady asking if I was Peter Cutler.  I assured her that I was and she then asked if I had remembered a Letter to the Editor that I had written in 1967 while I was on a tour of duty in Vietnam?  In all honesty, I replied, the answer was no.  She went on to explain that she had been leafing through some old newspaper articles that she had saved, my letter had caught her attention, and she was curious if I would like for her to send me a copy.

This was a most generous offer and I thanked her for her courtesy and kindness.  These are the type of good people who do so much to help us maintain faith in human nature and once again I cannot sufficiently express my gratitude and appreciation for this totally unsolicited act of good will.

After reviewing what I had written those many years ago, I decided to include it here on the blog.

“To the editor:

My wife has been sending me each copy of the ‘Brunswick Record’ and although I am pleased to receive a copy of my hometown newspaper and catch up on current events, the letters condemning the ‘atrocities’ committed by our planes, artillery and troops never fail to annoy me.

I have just returned from an operation in the vicinity of the ‘Iron Triangle’ in Vietnam, where members of my medical unit are providing medical care for members of a village that has long been a stronghold for the Viet Cong.

No matter that this village has provided refuge and food for the VC, despite the fact that some of the villagers took an active part in battles against the U.S. Forces and the Vietnamese Army; all of these people received free food, medical treatment, and are being re-located in an area that is not a combat zone.

This morning I helped stitch a gaping wound in the skull of a 14-year-old Vietnamese girl – a villager who was a casualty of a Viet Cong mortar attack against her village and the Americans who have come to help.  Many times before I have seen civilian casualties, victims of terrorist attacks, booby traps and mines.  All planted or perpetuated by the Viet Cong.

Our job isn’t easy.  But we’re winning this war.  Whether or not it’s popular has little meaning to us.  What we do need is support – not ill-informed criticism.

Sp5 Peter E. Cutler

U.S. Army, Vietnam”

Re-reading this letter, penned by a relatively callow young soldier early on in his military career, brought back many memories to the surface.  They are always there, but over the years I have found that it is best if they are not dwelt on overmuch.

Still, the parallels between what was going on in 1967 and the battles that our military are fighting today are evident.  American exceptionalism was alive and predominant then, as it is today.  It is not our politicians, nor our internal detractors, who provide this inherent strength, but our average citizens – in so many ways that the statists can neither comprehend nor match.

It is worth a trip down a somewhat rocky and pot-holed Memory Lane to showcase those attributes and remind us that the military of today carries that same torch so high and proudly.