Spinning Wheels
Talking about your troubles and you,
you never learn
Ride a painted pony
let the spinning wheel turn
--Spinning Wheels,
Blood, Sweat and Tears
_______________
Today's news is that General McChrystal has put his foot in his mouth, an action which is a perfect analog to the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©).
In a nutshell, McChrystal criticized Obama and special envoy to Afghanistan and Iraq Afghan Richard Holbrooke; Obama criticizes Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and Karzai continues to rake in U.S. dollars to finance his future lifestyle after he escapes to England or France.
The entire PWOT © seems like an old transmission that groans with every turn of the engine. Pretty soon the gears will become too loose or it will overheat from friction; either way, the machine will cease to function. The transmission lacks oil and fluid, and the gears don't mesh. Moreover, the driver doesn't know how to coax the old mare.
The above is a far cry from the actions of the leadership of al-Qaida, which by comparison seems to operate in a smooth manner.
That is what our PWOT has become: An old, self-destructive gearbox that will not take us anywhere that we need to go. Gen. McChrystal's mouth is the giveaway.
Labels: afghanistan, al-awlaki phony war on terror, mcchrystal, phony war on terror, PWOT
posted by rangeragainstwar at 10:15 PM
2 Comments:
without even going into having guys from special opsn rising to the rank of full general, which this old snake eater has a hard time wrapping hisa mind around.
i can't see the expansion of the role and size of special ops accomplishing anything without first and foremost degrading the units. it's like a sports league that decides "dude, we need more cities and teams..." without considering if there are enough quality players with the skill set needed for the game.
basketball, baseball, and football have all done that and the first accomplishment of those expansions is that the quality of play in the league is degraded.
the same thing will happen with special operations. you can't just wake up one morning and decide "hey, i'm going to make more SEALs, force recon, and special forces guys." doing that gives lie to the whole special part of the unit.
i, for one, saw the wisdom of the old guys who decreed that an active special warfare operator wouldn't rise above lt. col or navy commander. for the job those units need to do, you don't need a higher rank. special ops guys don't need a seat at the grand strategy tables, they don't need to be concerned with those higher questions.
in the days when the commander of special warfare in the navy knew me, an e6, by name, and by sight, our job was clear.
yes, there were times when the regulars didn't know how to use us to our most effective ways, but, there was also a limiting.
when fallujah was raging for the third or fourth time, my bright idea was to round up a hundred of the most sociopathic sniper teams that could be found and turn them loose every night.
i was thinking about the furor and havoc raised by the d.c. snipers which consisted of one crazy motherfucker and a fucked up kid. two fools literally shut down a city, as did zodiac in san francisco, and sonofsam in new york.
if one or two crazy ass whackjobs could make whole regions and cities grind to a halt, imagine what one hundred teams of trained professionals could do? i figured hey, a couple weeks of that shit and the few rational motherfuckers left in fallujah would be walking out under white flags to make that shit stop.
that's pure special ops thinking. task, quickest and safest way to accomplish said task. problem. solved.
from a grand strategy point of view something like that would have been disasterous. generations of fallujians would have hated those sneaky, murderous americans. the hostility and hatred generated by that action would have done more harm than good to the american effort there.
there were a couple of things that mchrystal said in that interview that showed me a man who thinks beyond his sight picture. trying to get his troops to understand the cost of every civilian killed or harmed, trying to put killing everything in sight far enough down the list that it's on the second page of options. that's good and thoughtful leadership.
but, the SEALs, and the special forces and rangers are not the peace corps. the force mix that might be appropriate to the task might well be sending in the peace corps with special ops providing cover.
that said, sometimes seeing half the picture is worst than operating blind.
if one or two crazy ass whackjobs could make whole regions and cities grind to a halt, imagine what one hundred teams of trained professionals could do? i figured hey, a couple weeks of that shit and the few rational motherfuckers left in fallujah would be walking out under white flags to make that shit stop.
That is effectively what Slobo and gang did to Sarajevo in the mid-90s. Snipers punctuated by mortars and artillery fire.
SP
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